Abstract
As the name suggests, The Žižek Dictionary presents a guide to ‘Žižekian thought’, with 63 individual contributions, each focused on a key term or intellectual encounter, within Žižek’s work. The entries themselves are short and sharp – not more than four pages each – and cover such concepts as ‘Act’, ‘Desire/drive’, ‘Fantasy’, ‘Jew’, ‘Parallax’, ‘Symptom’ and ‘Vanishing Mediator’ alongside important intellectual interlocutors including Louis Althusser, Judith Butler, David Lynch, Lenin and ‘Žižek’ (a final entry penned by Žižek himself, revolving around some of his ‘guilty pleasures’).
The contributors include a mixture of well-known figures in Žižek studies – for example, Adrian Johnston (on ‘Cognitivism/neuroscience’), Glyn Daly (on ‘Enjoyment/jouissance’) and Jodi Dean (on ‘Law’) – and also new voices, with a number of PhD candidates providing prominent entries. As the editor, Rex Butler, explains, he ‘wanted the widest variety of scholars who were interested in the work of Žižek to be represented in this dictionary: young, old, male, female, from all parts of the world and at all stages of their careers’ (p. xviii).
This editorial decision pays off handsomely in illustrating the range and applicability of the theory under discussion. As far as a dictionary’s practical task of elucidation through delineation, categorisation and cross-indexing goes, the book is a success. Either as individually insightful stand-alone pieces or as part of the totality, the entries should provide routes into Žižek for new readers and further valuable commentaries for those already immersed. That such a text exists – and succeeds – is not a minor matter.
Žižek, the back-cover proclaims, is ‘undoubtedly the most popular and discussed philosopher in the world today’. Writing this review just 2 years on from publication, and following Žižek’s recent dialectically inspired endorsement of the Trump victory in the 2016 US election and his interventions regarding the refugee crisis in Europe, the first claim seems more than overstated; there is, currently, an increasingly splenetic rejection of Žižek across Leftist social media. Such rejection of ‘the Elvis of Cultural Theory’ is not new, but it feels more substantial.
However, this reaction points to an issue within the second part of the back-cover blurb. Because yes, Žižek is much discussed, but arguably not as a philosopher, and often with little more than surface engagement. To this end, a serious but inviting text such as this is even more valuable. At only £12.99, it is also exceedingly good value, hopefully extending its reach beyond a prominent place within university reading lists.