In doing a little online research, I came across this gem: a NYT op-ed piece written by Slavoj Zizek that name-checks Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer theorizations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/24/opinion/24zizek.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The article refers to events roughly two weeks prior, when Khalid Shaikh Mohammed confessed to organizing the 9/11 attacks. Here's the original NYT article about that.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07E5DB1E31F936A25750C0A...

Something I'd like us to talk about in class today is whether Butler, who really does seem committed to finding (to crib capt. haddock) 'escape mechanisms' from this process of subordination and subjectivation, ever gives a convincing account of how those escape mechanisms would work. Haddock pointed to one escape mechanism on p.28, this notion of alterity, i.e.

While reading Salon.com's piece on Kayne West as one of the sexiest men alive, I came accross a hyperlink to this performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9ygY17VsXg

Oh how time does pass...I meant to post after class on Monday about some things I had been pondering. Please chime in if you're still interested in chatting about Zizek, etc.

I don't quite know what to make of this. A Dutch teenager has stolen 4,000 euros worth of virtual furniture from the virtual social networking site, Habbo Hotel . . . and he's been arrested for it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7094764.stm

I keep thinking of Baudrillard's claim about how subversion in the simulacrum is more complicit than that in the real . . . where does this fall?

I saw this in the Pomona student Digester, and thought people might be interested:

Please join us this Thursday, Nov. 15th at 4:15 PM in the Founder's Room of Honnold/Mudd Library for a Claremont Discourse Lecture, sponsored by The Libraries of The Claremont Colleges.
New Politics - Mass Media
Henry Krips, Professor of Cultural Studies, Claremont Graduate University

Zizek talks about symbolic authority which is another essential characteristic that we have been discussing as part of the postmodern. In other discussions, we have talked about Baudrillard's simulacra, which parallels to Zizek.

Zizek provides an example of the coin and how this coin "is always sustained by the guarantee of some symbolic authority." He then presents a following quote that seems to be saying that its physical property is only good for providing the "mere carrier of its social function" (19).

Zizek wants to largely emphasize the significance of the form rather than the hidden meaning behind things. He talks about this within the topic of commodity and dreams.

This is an interesting manuever since minds like Freud have previously focused on hidden meanings rather than the purpose of the form that these meanings are presented. It makes me take a step back and see my environment in a more structured, set-up way which translates to the overall picture of how reality is manipulated and portrayed in a certain form.

When Zizek talks about the Symptom, he seems to be essentially speaking of the general ignorance of the individual to the reality of the world. He goes on to say that "the subject can 'enjoy his symptom' only in so far as its logic escapes him."

I translate this statement to the common phrase of "Ignorance is bliss." Is Zizek promoting this ignorance, or does he want to be the one who brings this enjoyment to its end by enlightening everybody with reality, or the logic? What exactly is his logic?

I thought Zizek's discussion of the relationship between the social effectivity and the commodity exchange was very characteristic of the postmodern. He describes this relationship by saying that "non-knowledge of the reality is part of its very essence: the social effectivity of the exchange process is a kind of reality which is possible only on condition that the individuals partaking in it are not aware of its proper logic."