Table Of Content

Žižek and Media Studies Žižek and Media Studies A Reader Edited by Matthew Flisfeder and Louis-Paul Willis žižek and media studies Copyright © Matthew Flisfeder and Louis-Paul Willis, 2014. All rights reserved. First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978-1-137-36624-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Amnet. First edition: April 2014 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 List of Previous Publications The Symbolic, The Sublime, and Slavoj Žižek’s Theory of Film, by Matthew Flisfeder Matthew Flisfeder would like to dedicate this book to his parents, Janice and Avrum, for their continued love and support Louis-Paul Willis would like to dedicate this book to the memory of his father, Stephen C. Willis, who has provided academic inspiration Contents List of Figures xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction: Žižek and Media Studies, Beyond Lacan—Matthew Flisfeder and Louis-Paul Willis 1 Part I Media, Ideology, and Politics 1 Žižek’s Reception: Fifty Shades of Gray Ideology—Paul A. Taylor 15 2 The Sublime Absolute: Althusser, Žižek, and the Critique of Ideology—Agon Hamza 27 3 Student Fantasies: A Žižekian Perspective on the 2012 Quebec Student Uprising—Louis-Paul Willis 39 4 The Objective: The Configuration of Trauma in the “War on Terror,” or the Sublime Object of the Medium—Richard Bégin 53 Part II Popular Culture 5 The Priority of the Example: Speculative Identity in Film Studies—Todd McGowan 67 6 Imagining the End Times: Ideology, the Contemporary Disaster Movie, Contagion—Matthew Beaumont 79 7 Žižek and the 80s Movie Song: “There Is a Non-Relationship”—Graham Wolfe 91 8 A Little Piece of the Reel: Record Production and the Surplus of Prosthetic Vocality—Mickey Vallee 103 9 White Elephants and Dark Matter(s): Watching the World Cup with Slavoj Žižek—Tim Walters 115