Slavoj Žižek

To say that Slavoj Žižek wears many hats is an understatement at best. As one of the world’s most prominent and provocative intellectuals, Žižek is an author, professor, philosopher and cultural critic, as well as a former Presidential candidate of Slovenia. As an author, Yugoslavian-born Žižek has penned more than 75 books, which have been translated into over 20 languages. His subjects range from the dense—Lacanian psychoanalysis, Marxist theory, and Hegelian philosophy—to the accessible, including film, music, politics and pop culture. Žižek has taught and lectured at universities across the globe, and he currently holds a post at the European Graduate School in Switzerland. An active aficionado of film, Žižek served as the intellectual force behind The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006), a three-part documentary that uses the techniques of psychoanalysis to uncover what movies say about our desires. Žižek’s unique approach has garnered him a reputation as a leading thinker of our times, particularly among Europe’s “young intellectual vanguard.” Like the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan before him, Žižek prefers to engage in dialogical thought that is expansive, and often subject to change. He seeks not to answer questions, but to raise them instead. In October of 2011, Žižek came out as a staunch supporter of the Occupy movement. Speaking in New York’s Zuccotti Park that same month, he proclaimed to the crowd, “We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself.”

Lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia