Freud, Sigmund 1916 Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious, London: Kegan Paul.

Žižek sets his own curfews.

Slavoj Žižek has some funny ticks – I remember him taking three and a half minutes at the end of the Lenin and Philosophy conference in Essen (February 2001) telling us all there were only six minutes left for discussions and we should not make grand statements and we should avoid extravagant declarations … and [...]

Panto Rancière

The twin towers have been so often represented that it is barely possible to see them now for the fug and smoke. In a certain sense, and for some critics, the question of representation collapsed for Cultural Studies on that day in September, 2001. Of course everything has already been said about it, and nothing [...]

plastic stuff

“The admonitions to be happy, voiced in concert by the scientifically epicurean sanatorium-director and the highly strung propaganda chiefs of the entertainment industry, have about them the fury of the father berating his children for not rushing joyously downstairs when he comes home from his office. It is part of the mechanism of domination to [...]

narco-analysis

Dave Boothroyd’s book “Culture On Drugs” (2006) is a sound and entertaining read, and is just as much a carefully argued account of the influence of various substances on theory and theorists across a wide field – Freud and Cocaine, Benjamin and Hashish, Sartre and hallucinogens – as it is a commentary on, and plea [...]