It was two books based upon his Paris doctorate and published in English translation, that first rudely awoke the world to Zizekian discourse: The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989) and For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor (1990). Zizek next concentrated on his academic research, with his post at the Institute for Social Studies at The University of Ljubljana and a number of visiting professorships at American universities. Zizek ‘s major foray into politics culminated in an unsuccessful attempt to become a pro-reform presidential candidate, on a shared platform, in the 1990 Slovenian elections. He gained his second doctorate from the Université de Paris, in 1985, writing on the philosopher Hegel and the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Born in Ljubljana in the former Yugoslavia, during the period of Communist rule, Zizek studied for a degree in philosophy and sociology at the University of Ljubljana, which he was awarded in 1971, followed by postgraduate study in philosophy, and work as a translator. For Lacan, psychoanalysis is a procedure of reading and each chapter reads a passage from Lacan as a tool to interpret another text from philosophy, art or popular ideology.The Slovenian Lacanian Hegelian Slavoj Zizek (1949– ) is the contemporary dialectician par excellence the mapping of his identity via the three descriptors that open this sentence, which can be variously positioned and re-positioned, is one way of temporarily locating him.

Slavoj Žižek’s passionate defense of Lacan reasserts Lacan’s ethical urgency. Traditionally, psychoanalysis was expected to allow the patient to overcome the obstacles which prevented access to 'normal' sexual enjoyment today, however, we are bombarded by different versions of the injunction 'Enjoy!' Psychoanalysis is the only discourse in which you are allowed not to enjoy. Lacan’s motto of the ethics of psychoanalysis involves a profound paradox. These books use excerpts from the major texts to explain essential topics, such as Jacques Lacan's core ideas about enjoyment, which re-created our concept of psychoanalysis. The How to Read series provides a context and an explanation that will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon. “The only thing of which one can be guilty of is having given ground relative to one’s desire.”-Jacques Lacan

How to Read Lacan by Slavoj Žižek