Slavoj Žižek, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime

Kelsey Wood (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Cultural Studies
Psychoanalysis

Dates

First circulation or publication 2000

Places

United States (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Commentary / criticism

Resources

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Žižek's Lacan is not the Lacan of post-structuralism, the theorist of the floating signifier, but the Lacan of the Real, the first category in the famous Lacanian triad of the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic. The most under-represented of the Lacanian categories, the Real is also the most unfathomable because it is fundamentally impenetrable and cannot be assimilated to the symbolic order of language and communication (the fabric of daily life); nor does it belong to the Imaginary, the domain of images with which we identify and which capture our attention. —Marek Wieczorek

One of Slavoj Žižek's more sustained engagements with film theory is The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime. But like many of Žižek's works, Ridiculous Sublime is extraordinarily broad in scope: it ranges

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2575 words

Citation: Wood, Kelsey. "The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 June 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=30480, accessed 23 November 2024.]