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This essay revisits Margaret Thatcher's notorious claim: "There is no such thing as society." Not only does this remark sum up the neoliberal political programmatic but it also, and more fundamentally, exposes an entire political ontology, which organizes the antisocial tendencies of the capitalist mode of production. After reflecting on the implications of Thatcher's implicit stance in ontological matters, the text moves on to the critique of capitalist antisociality in Freud by reflecting specifically on the affective conditions of solidarity. In the end, the encounter of psychoanalysis and emancipatory politics, as well as their own solidarity, is exemplified in the concept of the symptom.

A charismatic and controversial figure, Lacan is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century and his work has revolutionized a range of fields. The volume aims to introduce Lacan's vast opus to the field of international politics in a coherent and approachable manner. The volume is split into three distinct sections:0Psychoanalysis and Politics: this section will frame the discussion by providing general background of Lacan's engagement with politics and the political / Lacan and the Political: each chapter will focus on different key ideas and concepts in Lacan's thought including ethics, justice, discourse, object a, symptom, jouissance / Political Encounters: seeks to represent different ways of engaging with Lacanian thought and ways of adopting it to explain and comment on global political phenomena. 0Bringing together internationally recognised scholars in the field, this volume will be an invaluable resource to students and scholars in areas including critical theory, international relations, political theory and political philosophy

A charismatic and controversial figure, Lacan is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century and his work has revolutionized a range of fields. The volume aims to introduce Lacan's vast opus to the field of international politics in a coherent and approachable manner. The volume is split into three distinct sections:0Psychoanalysis and Politics: this section will frame the discussion by providing general background of Lacan's engagement with politics and the political / Lacan and the Political: each chapter will focus on different key ideas and concepts in Lacan's thought including ethics, justice, discourse, object a, symptom, jouissance / Political Encounters: seeks to represent different ways of engaging with Lacanian thought and ways of adopting it to explain and comment on global political phenomena. 0Bringing together internationally recognised scholars in the field, this volume will be an invaluable resource to students and scholars in areas including critical theory, international relations, political theory and political philosophy.

In times when norms of commerce and technology seem to pervade all activities, the example of the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht stands out. Until its recent entrepreneurial recasting under austerity measures, the Academie had been a site of encounters which had surpassed the sterile confines of academia and the consensual norms of market-oriented work: it welcomed examinations and radical critiques of the spaces of artistic creation, theoretical inquiry and design, while also questioning the relations and boundaries between these fields. Building upon this experience, while at the same time surpassing its institutional limitations, it was our intention to construct a platform for collaboration between theorists, designers and artists by suspending the borders between their respective disciplines, by affirming the need for collective and experimental work, by engaging in projects which do not shy away from questioning the very possibilities of different domains, whether aesthetic, scientific or political. Within the framework of a three-day inaugural meeting, we presented and discussed works in design, art and theory by people formerly related to or supporting the Academie as well as others who are joining us. A series of lectures and performances, seminars and screenings, as well as displays of works and book presentations served not only as materials for a broader discussion, but also as a nucleus for future collaborative work.Monday 15 July 10:30 Welcome 10:45 Pietro Bianchi: Looking With No Eyes. The Lacanian Gaze and the Problem of Formalization of the Visual Field 11:15 Alan Smart: How to Design? 11:45 Coffee Break 12:15 Jonathan Short: On the Sovereignty of Value 12:45 Sami Khatib: Non-Realist Realism, Notes on Benjamin and Brecht 13:15 Benjamin Dawson: Why Practice? 13:45-15:45 Lunch Break 15:45 Nathaniel Boyd: Who Thinks Concretely? Hegel's Critique of Political Abstraction 16:15 Agon Hamza: Žižek's Althusser on Ideology 16:45-17:15 Coffee Break 17:15 Simone van Dijken: Mumbling with the Devil ...

Rethinks objectivity and fiction in contemporary philosophy, psychoanalysis and Marxism – beyond the realism–nominalism divideRethinks the concept of objectivity through its relation to fiction beyond their mere oppositionConceptualises 'objective fictions'Highlights a shared background underpinning realist and nominalist approaches to the relation between subjectivity and objectivityRevitalises modern/contemporary philosophical currents, psychoanalytic theory and the Marxist critique of political economy beyond the realism-nominalism divideIncludes contributions from a mix of renowned thinkers and from the new generation, including Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar, Frank Ruda and Samo TomšičRelying on contemporary continental philosophy, psychoanalytic theory and the Marxist tradition, this volume moves beyond the deadlock between nominalism and realism. It rethinks the relationship between objectivity and fiction through engaging with a series of 'objective fictions', including fetishes, semblances, lies, rumours, sophistry, fantasies, and conspiracy theories, among other phenomena. What all these phenomena exhibit are paradoxical entanglements of subjectivity with objectivity and of fiction with truth.When it comes to questions of objectivity in current philosophical debates and public discourse, we are witnessing the re-emergence and growing importance of two classical, opposed approaches: nominalism and (metaphysical) realism. Today's nominalist stances, by absolutizing intersubjectivity, are moving towards the abandonment of the very notion of truth and objective reality. By contrast, today's realist positions, including those bound up with scientific discourse, insist on the category of the object-in-itself as irreducible to any kind of subjective mediation. However, despite their seeming mutual exclusivity, both approaches share fundamental presuppositions, namely, those of neat separations between the spheres of subjectivity and objectivity as well as between the realms of fiction and truth.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: On a Disjunctive Synthesis between Lacan and Deleuze -- Chapter 1 For Another Lacan-Deleuze Encounter -- Chapter 2 Reciprocal Portrait of Jacques Lacan in Gilles Deleuze -- Chapter 3 Does the Body without Organs Have Any Sex at All? Lacan and Deleuze on Perversion and Sexual Difference -- Chapter 4 Gnomonology: Deleuze's Phobias and the Line of Flight between Speech and the Body -- Chapter 5 Lacan, Deleuze and the Politics of the Face -- Chapter 6 Denkwunderkeiten: On Deleuze, Schreber and Freud -- Chapter 7 Snark, Jabberwock, Poord'jeli: Deleuze and the Lacanian School on the Names-of-the-Father -- Chapter 8 Baroque Structuralism: Deleuze, Lacan and the Critique of Linguistics -- Chapter 9 Exalted Obscenity and the Lawyer of God: Lacan, Deleuze and the Baroque -- Chapter 10 The Death Drive -- Chapter 11 Repetition and Difference: Žižek, Deleuze and Lacanian Drives -- Chapter 12 Lacan, Deleuze and the Consequences of Formalism -- Notes on Contributors -- Index

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Trouble with Žižek -- PART I. PHILOSOPHY -- 1 "Freedom or System? Yes, Please!": How to Read Slavoj Žižek's Less Than Nothing- Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism -- 2 How to Repeat Plato? For a Platonism of the Non-All -- 3 Materialism between Critique and Speculation -- 4 Žižek's Reading Machine -- 5 The Shift of the Gaze in Žižek's Philosophical Writing -- 6 The Two Cats: Žižek, Derrida, and Other Animals -- PART II: PSYCHOANALYSIS -- 7 "Father, Don't You See I'm Burning?" Žižek, Psychoanalysis, and the Apocalypse -- Enjoy Your Truth: Lacan as Vanishing Mediator between Badiou and Žižek -- 9 The Discourse of the Wild Analyst -- 10 "Vers un Signifiant Nouveau": Our Task after Lacan -- 11 Mourning or Melancholia? Collapse of Capitalism and Delusional Attachments -- PART III. POLITICS -- 12 Žižek with Marx: Outside in the Critique of Political Economy -- 13 Žižek as a Reader of Marx, Marx as a Reader of Žižek -- 14 A Plea for Žižekian Politics -- PART IV. RELIGION -- 15 The Problem of Christianity and Žižek's "Middle Period" -- 16 Islam: How Could It Have Emerged after Christianity? -- Afterword. The Minimal Event: From Hystericization to Subjective Destitution -- Contributors -- Index