‘From the Event to the Symptom: Badiou and Lacanian Ontology’. This article discusses the relation between the negative ontology in Lacan’s psychoanalysis and the event in Badiou’s philosophy, trying to shed light on the differences in the political context of the effort to go beyond capitalism. After a brief summary of the meaning of the negative in Lacan’s theory, the significance and power of the event in Badiou’s thought, and especially in his recent, more directly political, works, is analysed: on (...) this basis, the way in which Badiou reads Lacan and understands the subject is dealt with, and the limitations of this reading are pointed out. It is argued that, due to Badiou’s rejection of the intrinsic negativity of Lacan’s subject, there is a structural incompatibility between them. The idealistic component of Badiou’s thought is then tackled, with reference to the hidden Kantiansm (Žižek) and the Platonism present in his philosophy. In conclusion, a political critique of the ways in which Badiou’s event could work in the world is offered: the synchronic nature of the real and the symbolic – from which descends the ontological negativity of the event, that cannot therefore be defined through the use of “before” and “after” – is reaffirmed. (shrink)

This thesis offers a systematic analysis of the ideological structure in the Islamic Republic of Iran through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalytic critique of ideology. The Lacanian emphasis on the libidinal constitution of ideology changes the object of analysis from social reality in its empirical aspects to the unconscious or disavowed conditions sustaining social reality in the Islamic Republic. The overall analysis of this thesis is divided into three interrelated research domains: the first domain of political subjectivity examines how subjectivity (...) in Iran is embedded in the ideological order, as well as how that order was constructed through the 1979 Islamic revolution by tapping into the unconscious agency of political subjectivity; the second theologico-political domain inquires into the form of ideology materialised in the socio-political framework of the Islamic Republic and analyses its libidinal sustainability; the third domain explores the political economy in Iran by conflating its historical and ontological inquiry. The analysis of the three domains helps me to discern the inherent contradictions of the ideological structure in contemporary Iran and the peculiar way these contradictions are mediated. Their mediation conversely ensures the reproduction of ideology on an unconscious level. This thesis therefore explores how ideology in the Islamic Republic of Iran enables a consistent experience of social reality and how subjectivity sustains the ideological order through libidinal investments. (shrink)

In the appendix of his latest book, Incontinence of the Void, Žižek presents an account of how, according to his dialectical materialism, love can overcome death. This article situates Žižek ’s argument in the context of his ontology and his theory of the subject to explicate how Žižek arrives at this position: one that appears, on the surface, to be inconsistent with a staunch materialist and atheistic stance. Building on Žižek ’s references to Kierkegaard in this appendix, I will furthermore (...) argue that the figure of the Knight of Faith from Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling can be as another instantiation of the revolutionary subject of the act. This figure can be said to participate in a type of love that overcomes death insofar as its attachment to objects of desire embodies the acephalous, undead drive that is not reducible to ontic or symbolic structures of reality. (shrink)

The focus of this paper lies in the unconscious solidification of capitalist ideology through Lacanian understanding of subjectivity. The analysis intervenes in the ideological fantasy and its inherent antagonisms in order to analyse the way capitalist ideology strives to fill or repress these ruptures in the socio-symbolic edifice. It points to the mode of proliferation of certain objects, which the fantasy puts in the position where they can function as objects of desire, covering the cracks in the socio-symbolic order by (...) filling their own lack. Furthermore, I focus on the establishment and signification of meaning within the capitalist matrix as well as its dialectical overlap with the objects proliferated by the socio-economic system in question. Such simultaneous fusion of lack and excess creates ideological enjoyment and solidifies capitalist ideology in the subject’s fantasy construction. Here lies the strength of capitalist ideology and its appropriation of even some social phenomena into consumerist categories. It is therefore vital to understand how ideology manages to fix its core of enjoyment through a dialectical overlap of meaning and objects to produce a totalized experience of reality. In itself, this already points to the much neglected Lacanian discourse of the Capitalist, revealing how the daily reality of subjects is driven by unconscious fantasy in its dogmatic ideological circle. It also hints to the homology between Lacan's surplus- jouissance and Marx's surplus-value. (shrink)

This article employs the animated feature film WALL-E to examine a contemporary incarnation of paternal authority, the anal father of enjoyment. Slavoj Zizek coined the expression “anal father of enjoyment” to identify a metaphorical father who operates counter to Sigmund Freud’s oedipal. Unlike the oedipal father, the anal father does not command the subject to sacrifice enjoyment as a price for entry into the social order. Rather, the anal father directs the subject to enjoy excessively. This article reasons that the (...) anal father figuration is a result of global capitalism. While a post-apocalyptic event, such as climate change, may destroy the planet, it does not end capitalism. Yet, WALL-E suggests that with the demise of the anal father, capitalism can be replaced with an alternative economic system. (shrink)

We revisit the Marxist debate on the commodity form. By following the thought of Alfred Sohn-Rethel and Slavoj Žižek, we attempt to understand the commodity form through the Kantian categories a priori. Sohn-Rethel explores the proposition that there can be no cognition independent of its historical and social conditions and puts forward the daring conclusion of an ontological unity between knowledge and commodity exchange. We suggest that Sohn-Rethel’s thought finds new relevance nowadays, under the prevalence of a cognitive capitalism. We (...) discuss the reformulation of relations of production and consumption under cognitive capitalism and show how knowledge-led immaterial and affective labour adds a higher value to the commodities into which it is embodied. Above all, the commodity form in cognitive capitalism becomes biopolitical. (shrink)

The focus of this paper lies in the unconscious solidification of capitalist ideology through Lacanian understanding of subjectivity. The analysis intervenes in the ideological fantasy and its inherent antagonisms in order to analyse the way capitalist ideology strives to fill or repress these ruptures in the socio-symbolic edifice. It points to the mode of proliferation of certain objects, which the fantasy puts in the position where they can function as objects of desire, covering the cracks in the socio-symbolic order by (...) filling their own lack. Furthermore, I focus on the establishment and signification of meaning within the capitalist matrix as well as its dialectical overlap with the objects proliferated by the socio-economic system in question. Such simultaneous fusion of lack and excess creates ideological enjoyment and solidifies capitalist ideology in the subject’s fantasy construction. Here lies the strength of capitalist ideology and its appropriation of even some social phenomena into consumerist categories. It is therefore vital to understand how ideology manages to fix its core of enjoyment through a dialectical overlap of meaning and objects to produce a totalized experience of reality. In itself, this already points to the much neglected Lacanian discourse of the Capitalist, revealing how the daily reality of subjects is driven by unconscious fantasy in its dogmatic ideological circle. It also hints to the homology between Lacan's surplus- jouissance and Marx's surplus-value. (shrink)