An Interview with Slavoj Zizek

Abstract

Slavoj Zizek is a fifty year old Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalist working in both Lubiana and the United States. He has been renowned and widely read abroad for years. His first Italian translation appeared in 1999 (Il grande altro, Milan, Feltrinelli). At the end of the same year L’isterico sublime. Psicoanalisi e idealismo tedesco (Milan, SA/TUROS Edizioni) was published: this is a sort of psychoanalitic reading of the notion of subject, as it is investigated in Hegel’s works. Zizek has also published some essays in "aut aut" (nn.293-294 e 296-297). An attentive observer of mass social phenomena, of the political dimension and the mechanisms of power (from the Balcan conflicts to Hitchcock movies), Zizek investigates his subjects using both the traditional philosophical methods and the psychoanalitic approach, notably Lacan’s. In this interview, conducted by Fabio Polidori, we asked him to speak of his researches in the context of the present situation.