[Reader-list] Žižek, Rancière, Foucault, Bourdieu…

[Taha Mehmood]

Saw Zizek, the film, sometime back, he seems more like a Baba Ramdev
of cultural theory or a Zakir Nayak of Marxist discourse. Zizek like
Zakir swears by concepts encapsulated by a system of thoughts and
ideas. There's appears to be a believer's like infection in his ideas.
Like Baba Ramdev, Zizek appears to be completely natural when five
thousand pairs of eyes are watching him perform. Like Ramdev he
regales the crowd with his psychoanalytical Ujjayi breath. The Id, Ego
and Super Ego rendered in Zizek's mental gymnastics seems like a
diaphragmatic breathing exercise to absorb, contain and let out ideas.
No wonder then he is often shown as leading huge eager gushing crowds
to experience ecstasy, joy, sadness, insight, amazement and laughter
or some combination of these emotions, in a single sitting. Like Osho,
Zizek too seems to have a special place for concepts like Love and
Fuck. Like Sri Satya Sai baba, Zizek appears to deals in magic and
myths but unlike him, Zizek seems to interpret for us, as to what is
actually going on. Like Sri Sri Ravi Sankar, Zizek wear similar kind
of clothes and postures through out the film except for one section
when he is in a bed, half naked, speaking animatedly about philosophy
and the role of philosophers. In academia though he seems like a
polarizing figure. So if most ardent bkhats have started International
Journal of Zizek Studies or Centre for Ideology Critique and Žižek
Studies, then his most ardent critics appears to be flooding the
market with their books, essays and arguments. Is he a Godman of
psychoanalysis, a fad, we don't know, but the film is nice. Thank you
Anand for taking this initiative.