After Zizek conferences
Slavoj Žižek was in town last week, and lectured twice in Istanbul Bilgi University. One of my dear friends, Müge Serin provides a well done philosophical critique of these conferences and i provide a brief and more speculative critique just in the following paragraphs.
First of all, a technical detail. Zizek is a great public speaker. His constant use of anecdotes, most of them are not politically correct, make the audience keep listening. I admired his speech power although I would like to use less sexist language.
At the end of the first conference, my big conclusion was that Zizek does not accept any theoretical novelties after Lenin. In this sense, despite his humourous, sympathetic manner he is a Leninist fundamentalist. His some talk of a pursuit for a new "universality" then is a theoretically very regressive act.
His derision of political correctness, multiculturalism and post-structuralism ignores all the nuances and hard-won civil rights. His constant tease overlooks the historical struggles and contributions. His constant reactionism to "trendy" issues are not always helful but indeed regressive.
An older note on Zizek's perception of Web 2.0: Erkan cannot help but attack both Slavoj Zizek and Robert Fisk - I
A recent article in the Guardian on Turkey's possible intervention in Northern Iraq again misses Turkey's position although he provides some constructive criticism on war agains terrorism discourse...
And here comes a more substantive commentary by Müge Serin:
