The Most Sublime Hysteric

What do we know about Hegel? What do we know about Marx? What do weknow about democracy and totalitarianism? Communism andpsychoanalysis? What do we know that isn't a platitude that we'veheard a thousand times - or a self-satisfied certainty? Through hisbrilliant reading of Hegel, Slavoj Zizek - one of the mostprovocative and widely-read thinkers of our time - upends ourtraditional understanding, dynamites every cliché andundermines every conviction in order to clear the ground for newways of answering these questions. When Lacan described Hegel as the 'most sublimehysteric', he was referring to the way that the hysteric asksquestions because he experiences his own desire as if it were theOther's desire. In the dialectical process, the question asked ofthe Other is resolved through a reflexive turn in which thequestion begins to function as its own answer. We had made Hegelinto the theorist of abstraction and reaction, but by reading Hegelwith Lacan, Zizek unveils a Hegel of the concrete and of revolution- his own, and the one to come. This early and dazzlingly original work by Zizek offers a uniqueinsight into the ideas which have since become hallmarks of hismature thought. It will be of great interest to anyone interestedin critical theory, philosophy and contemporary social thought.