ABSTRACT

The very first book dedicated to Slavoj Zizek’s theoretical treatment of law, this book gathers widely recognized Zizek scholars as well as legal theorists to offer a sustained analysis of the place of law in Zizek’s work. Whether it is with reference to symbolic law, psychoanalytical law, religious law, positive law, human rights, to Lacan’s, Hegel’s, or Kant’s philosophies of law, or even to Jewish or Buddhist law, Zizek returns again and again to law. And what his work offers, this volume demonstrates, is a radically new approach to law, and a rethinking of its role within the framework of radical politics. With the help of Zizek himself – who here, and for the first time, directly engages with the topic of law – this collection provides an authoritative account of ‘Zizek and law’. It will be invaluable resource for researchers and students in the fields of law, legal theory, legal philosophy, political theory, psychoanalysis, theology, and cultural studies.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

part I|88 pages

Law's obscenity

chapter 1|18 pages

The pervert's guide to the law

Clinical vignettes from Breaking Bad to breaking free

chapter 2|11 pages

Politics and perversion

Situating Žižek's Paul

chapter 3|18 pages

Changing the subject

Rights, revolution, and capitalist discourse

chapter 4|20 pages

Changing fantasies

Žižek and the limits of democracy

chapter 5|19 pages

The ambiguous remainder

Contemporary capitalism and the becoming law of the symptom

part |20 pages

Intermission

chapter 6|18 pages

Superheroes and the law

Batman, Superman, and the “big Other”

part II|101 pages

Hegel and consequences

chapter 7|32 pages

Bartleby by nature

German idealism, biology, and the Žižekian compatibilism of Less Than Nothing

chapter 8|21 pages

What is to be judged?

On infinitely infinite judgments and their consequences

chapter 10|10 pages

Afterword to transgression

chapter 11|19 pages

Sonorous law II

The refrain 1

chapter |28 pages

Postscript

The rule of law between obscenity and the right to distress