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1 – 10 of 519Žižek has become both one of the dominant voices in current leftist cultural, social, and political critique and one of the most maligned. His work can be obscure, difficult to…
Abstract
Žižek has become both one of the dominant voices in current leftist cultural, social, and political critique and one of the most maligned. His work can be obscure, difficult to understand, and at times hyperbolic. Of particular difficulty is the attempt to discern a “positive” project in his work, as it seems that he is very good at offering us a sustained discussion of the difficulties of finding an oppositional stance to what he describes as our “current situation.” In fact, he is so good at this, that if we take him seriously it becomes hard to see a way out. Despite such appearances, Žižek's work offers us a radical insight into the twin processes of the creation of the social and the creation of the subject (and their mutual interdependence) as well as a novel conception of the possibility of resistance and social change based on this process. Furthermore, we can best make sense of this theory of resistance as founded in what Žižek identifies as the “negative” moment. This moment brings with it the possibility of something which is not determined by the existing power structure, thus it brings with it the possibility of a universalist stance that is unconditioned by our “current situation.” It is not then, as some have argued, that Žižek's privileging of the negative moment leads to a theory of social change that cannot sustain a positive project, nor is it the case that Žižek's theory of the negative serves as the first move upon which a positive project can be built. Žižek's radical insight is that the negative moment can itself be a positive phenomenon. The proper negative act then is one which lays the foundation for social change by creating a radical form of subjectivity that serves as the basis for such change. In trying to explicate Žižek's claims, what he is suggesting can be best understood by reference to Žižek's Lacanian reading of Hegel's theory of subjective freedom: freedom arising in the necessity that first defines (and confines) the subject.
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The purpose of this paper is to argue that narrative methodology is increasingly caught in an ideological deadlock set in terms of a false choice between meaning (an unconditional…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue that narrative methodology is increasingly caught in an ideological deadlock set in terms of a false choice between meaning (an unconditional respect for the voice of experience) and truth (the scientific validation of stories), which has led to an increasing dismissal of analysis in narrative research. Inadvertently, however, this development has also heightened vulnerability to ideological deception in storytelling.
Design/methodology/approach
Through the lens of Žižek's theory of ideology, this paper offers a reflection on narrative analysis that proposes a renewed critical perspective on “writing responsibly” about organizations by repositioning narrative analysis and its purpose vis‐à‐vis science, storytelling and ideology.
Findings
Žižek's conception of ideological fantasy highlights the impotence of cognitive forms of ideology critique in this age. He stresses how this reality is pervaded as deeply by fetishistic illusions as is thought. These illusions, disseminated through narrative, serve as the backbone of everyday practices in organizations and society, based on a process of symbolic “quilting” that is designed to cover up the traumatic emptiness of central signifiers used to make sense of experience. Semiotic analysis enables people to recognize how they constantly “re‐write” this experience in organizational narratives and science to erase from view the structural impossibility of social fantasies.
Research limitations/implications
Three areas for the semiotic analysis of narratives are identified that merit special attention for the recognition of this ideological deception in stories: the entwinement of fact and fiction, the interplay of form and content and the use of perspective and voice.
Originality/value
Žižek's theory has not been systematically applied yet as a methodological tool in narrative research and analysis, while it affords a promising way to critically negotiate the pitfalls of representation in organization and business research.
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Gary P. Radford, Marie L. Radford and Mark Alpert
– The purpose of this paper is to use the work of philosopher Slavoj Žižek to gain insights into representations of the librarian and the library in contemporary popular culture.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use the work of philosopher Slavoj Žižek to gain insights into representations of the librarian and the library in contemporary popular culture.
Design/methodology/approach
A psycho-analytic reading of the comic book series Rex Libris using Slavoj Žižek’s treatment of Jacques Lacan.
Findings
Žižek’s approach can provide novel and previously unconsidered insights into the understanding of librarian stereotypes in particular and representations of the library in general.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is limited to the representations of the librarian and the library in one comic book series. Its findings need to be generalized to representations in other forms of popular culture.
Originality/value
As far as the authors know, this is the only paper that has applied the work of Žižek in the library and information science (LIS) literature. As such, not only are the insights into the representations of librarians and libraries important, this paper also acts as a valuable introduction to the work of Žižek for the LIS community of scholars.
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Morrison's Beloved presents a complex anatomy of guilt. This is the perception that underwrites Slavoj Zizek's recruitment of the 1987 novel in his recent discussion of ethics and…
Abstract
Morrison's Beloved presents a complex anatomy of guilt. This is the perception that underwrites Slavoj Zizek's recruitment of the 1987 novel in his recent discussion of ethics and politics. In Zizek's Fragile Absolute (2000), he claims that Sethe's murder of her child as a privileged instance of what he terms “the ethical act.” Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalytic ethics to articulate a relation between the psychic and the political, Zizek argues that the only truly ethical act is one that breaks with the cycle of law and transgression, evading the superego through a suicidal “shooting oneself in the foot.” This paper argues that while Zizek's reading of Beloved is in some ways illuminating, Morrison's novel itself offers a profound analysis of Zizek's conception of the “ethical act,” exposing the limited nature of this act as part of a larger political strategy. I propose a reading of Morrison's novel that focuses on its exploration of violence and guilt, reading it both alongside and against dominant psychoanalytic conceptions derived from Freud, Lacan, and Zizek's deployment of both.
Juup Essers, Steffen Böhm and Alessia Contu
The purpose of this paper is to provide an introductory overview of this special issue highlighting some of the distinctive features of Žižek's Lacan‐inspired thought relevant to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an introductory overview of this special issue highlighting some of the distinctive features of Žižek's Lacan‐inspired thought relevant to the role of ideologies in organizational change management.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach used aims to show how ideological and ethical ramifications of Žižek's recent analysis of a “Jacobin” change paradigm can affect thought on everyday change practices in business and management.
Findings
Some parallels are drawn between current change practices and narrative tactics employed by Robespierre during the Jacobin reign of terror to “extort” the commitment of participants in the change process.
Practical implications
This paper/special issue invites reconsideration of our late capitalist intellectual/practical “reflexes” in change management, i.e. to reassess their ideological mechanism.
Originality/value
Žižekian/Lacanian approaches to organizations and change are especially suitable for this purpose but have only recently begun to emerge.
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Rasmus Johnsen, Sara Louise Muhr and Michael Pedersen
With the help of Slavoj Žižek's concept of interpassivity, this paper seeks to illustrate the frantic activities performed by employees to maintain a separation between the idea…
Abstract
Purpose
With the help of Slavoj Žižek's concept of interpassivity, this paper seeks to illustrate the frantic activities performed by employees to maintain a separation between the idea of an authentic self and the idea of a corporate self. Furthermore, this paper aims to illustrate these activities empirically.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical example is based on a case study of three of the largest international consultancy firms. About 50 consultants were interviewed in this study, but this paper primarily focuses on the experiences of one of these consultants, and goes into depth with his experiences to illustrate the frantic mechanisms of interpassivity.
Findings
The paper shows how the maintenance of an “authentic self” outside of the corporate culture demands a distinct and frantic activity; that this activity can best be understood as interpassive in the sense that it involves taking over the passive acknowledgement for which someone else is responsible; and how the separation of an authentic from a corporate self, rather than resist the demand to enjoy one's work – prescribed by contemporary management programs – nourishes it.
Originality/value
The paper builds on recent literature on cynicism and normative control in organisations. It introduces interpassivity to this discussion.
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Christian Garmann Johnsen and Bent Meier Sørensen
While considerable critical energy has been devoted to unmasking the figure of the heroic entrepreneur, the idea that entrepreneurs are unique individuals with special abilities…
Abstract
Purpose
While considerable critical energy has been devoted to unmasking the figure of the heroic entrepreneur, the idea that entrepreneurs are unique individuals with special abilities continues to be widespread in scholarly research, social media and popular culture. The purpose of this paper is to traverse the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur by offering a reading of Richard Branson’s autobiography, Losing My Virginity.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical approach of this paper is informed by Slavoj Žižek’s concept of fantasy and his critical analytical strategy of “traversing the fantasy”. Žižek offers a theoretical framework that allows us to understand how narratives of famous entrepreneurs create paradoxical fantasies that produce desire.
Findings
By offering a reading of Richard Branson’s autobiography, Losing My Virginity, this paper serves to illustrate how the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur creates the injunction to overcome oneself and become true to oneself, but also how this figure is ridden with contradictions and impossibilities. Branson’s book will eventually be shown to be a religious narrative, where the entrepreneur is responsible for redeeming the crises not only of the economy, but of being as such.
Originality/value
Rather than striving towards a processual approach that lays emphasis on the collective effort involved in entrepreneurship, this paper critically engages directly with the heroic entrepreneur by exploring how this figure is a fantasy that structures desire. This paper shows how critical entrepreneurship studies could benefit from an approach that analyses how the cultural representation of business celebrates the heroic entrepreneur as a source of value creation. The authors further argue that it is the contradictions and impossibilities embodied in the figure of the heroic entrepreneur that carry its far-reaching appeal.
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