Žižek

Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek in Liverpool, England, 2008
Born	(1949-03-21) 21 March 1949 (age 68) Ljubljana, PR Slovenia, FPR Yugoslavia (now in Slovenia)
Alma mater	University of Ljubljana (B.A./M.A./D.A.) University of Paris VIII (Ph.D.)
Era	20th- & 21st-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis Lacanian psychoanalysis Hegelianism Freudo-Marxism
Institutions	University of Ljubljana New York University Birkbeck, University of London
Main interests	Ideology Marxism Ontology Political theory Psychoanalysis Cultural studies Film theory Theology German idealism Dialectic
Notable ideas	Ideology as an unconscious fantasy that structures reality; revival of dialectical materialism
Influences Althusser Badiou Chesterton Debenjak Freud Hegel Heidegger Jameson Lacan Laclau Lenin György Lukács Marx Robespierre Schelling Kant Nietzsche Walter Benjamin Theodor W. Adorno Kierkegaard Trotsky Descartes
Influenced Fisher Horvat Johnston Parker Salecl Ruda Zupančič Jameson Eagleton Alemán

Slavoj Žižek (/ˈslɑːvɔɪ ˈʒɪʒɛk/ SLAH-voy ZHIZH-ek; Slovene pronunciation: [ˈslaʋɔj ˈʒiʒɛk]; born 21 March 1949) is a continental philosopher. He is a senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities of the University of London. He works in subjects including continental philosophy, political theory, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, film criticism, Marxism, Hegelianism and theology.

Žižek in 1989 published his first English text, The Sublime Object of Ideology, in which he departed from traditional Marxist theory to develop a materialist conception of ideology that drew heavily on Lacanian psychoanalysis and Hegelian idealism. His early theoretical work became increasingly eclectic and political in the 1990s, dealing frequently in the critical analysis of disparate forms of popular culture and making him a popular figure of the academic left. A critic of capitalism, neoliberalism and political correctness, Žižek identifies as a political radical, and his work has been characterized as challenging orthodoxies of both the political right and the left-liberal academy.