

Event Date: 19 April 2016

Room B01

Clore Management Building

Birkbeck, University of London

Torrington Square

London WC1E 7HX

The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities presents:

Masterclass 2: Is Surplus-Value Marx’s Name For Surplus-Enjoyment?



Slavoj Žižek (International Director, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities) – Is Surplus-Value Marx’s Name For Surplus-Enjoyment?

Jacques Lacan located the origin of his key notion of plus-de-jouir (surplus-enjoyment) in Marx’s notion of surplus-value, and it is worth exploring in detail the homology of the two notions, adding a third one, that of surplus-knowledge, a pseudo-knowledge in the guise of which our ignorance appears (“supreme” knowledge of God and other hidden forces, conspiracy theories, etc.). Such an analysis is crucial for resuscitating Marx’s critique of political economy, as well as for properly understanding today’s global capitalism and its ideological effects, up to fundamentalist violence.

Recommended reading:

Slavoj Žižek, ‘The Return of the Critique of Political Economy’ in Living in the End of Times (Verso 2010)

Samo Tomšič, The Capitalist Unconscious (Verso Books 2015)

Talk:

Questions: