The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities has been hosting some ‘Masterclasses’ with Slavoj Žižek. The three talks are available for download here:
- The Idea of Communism and its Actuality (plus Q&A) (23rd March 2011)
- Lacan and Sexual Difference (plus Q&A) (25th March 2011)
- The Limits of Hegel (26th March 2011)
Need more Žižek? There’s also an older talk:
- Violence Revisited (plus Q&A) (12 November 2010)
Plus, here’s an interesting lecture (1971) by, and interviews with, Jacques Lacan in which he ruminates about language, death, faith, life, psychoanalysis, love, alienation, and paranoia:
jasongoroncy.com 
Interesting discussion on Hegel. I had an early morning dyslexic moment and read ‘Hegel’ as ‘Hebel’. Because I am doing an assignment on Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 and focussing on the meaning of ‘Hebel’ which is translated ‘meaningless or vanity’ I started to listen to the recording… I soon found out I read the title wrong – but he said a lot that I can draw on, which I hadn’t thought of before and can include into this assignment…and therefore my listening to his talk did have a specific purpose to it. ;)
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These look like great lectures. Thanks.
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Do you see a growing trend of Christians engaging or appropriating ideas from Žižek and Lacan into their own theological reflection? If yes, what do you think are the reasons for this?
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Just another protestant machiavellian (with Freudian updates/confusion)
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Sivin Kit,
Yes, I’d say so. Check out the two recent books edited by Creston Davis, which has articles by Zizek, Terry Eagleton, John Milbank and others. I think the first was entitled “Theology and the Political”, and there is a ‘sequel’, but I’m not sure of the name of it. Also take a look at the co-authored book by Milbank and Zizek called “The Monstrosity of Christ” and the postmodern theological works of Graham Ward, the best of which I would argue is “The Politics of Discipleship”. As to the reasons, I’m not really into theology enough to venture any, but I would guess that any left-leaning Christian thinkers who want to preserve/re-think transcendence without sacrificing the insights of poststructuralist ethics and socialist political critiques of capitalism would almost HAVE to appropriate Zizek’s work.
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