St. Mark's Bookshop

A few days before the beginning of American led military operations in Iraq, Slavoj Žižek, the world renowned Slovenian philosopher, cultural critic and political theorist delivers an electrifying, more than two hour lecture in a hanger-like art gallery in New York packed with a 600+ overcapacity crowd. To the delight of a captivated audience, Žižek applies his dazzling and often hilarious thinking to topics ranging from the dialectics of the gaze in Hitchcock films all the way to the Kinder Surprise chocolate egg candy as a supreme metaphor for the functioning of the capitalist commodity. He also discusses at length, of course, the coming War and the dangers it poses for democracy and civil liberties in the West and touches upon the subjects of Belief and of Christianity in opposition to Paganism and as it relates to the notion of Truth. The 45 minute question and answer session closing the proceedings turns the event into a formidable town hall meeting during which people from all walks of life voice their concerns and exchange views with the ferociously prolific intellectual. All along philosophy is extracted from the Academic sphere and thrust into the City and into the streets, where it belongs.

Foundation 20 21 - 2011 - 137 Minutes