Surplus Enjoyment A Guide for the Non-Perplexed

Zizek. Slavoj

ISBN 10: 1350409391 / ISBN 13: 9781350409392

Published by Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2023

About this Item

Covers have minor wear, creasing, soil and curling. Corners bumped and curled. Binding tight. No writing. 393 pages including index. Argues that the recognizing the society of enjoyment in which we need and excess of more to be able to enjoy enough is a way out of the vicious circle of never enough and always wanting more. Size: 5 x 7.75.

Seller Inventory # 041668

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Surplus Enjoyment A Guide for the Non-Perplexed
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, London
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1350409391
• ISBN 13: 9781350409392
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Self Help/Psychology

About this title

Synopsis

Contemporary life is defined by excess. There must always be more, there is never enough. We need a surplus to what we need to be able to truly enjoy what we have. Slavoj Žižek's guide to surplus (and why it's enjoyable) begins by arguing that what is surplus to our needs is by its very nature unsubstantial and unnecessary. But, perversely, without this surplus, we wouldn't be able to enjoy, what is substantial and necessary. Indeed, without the surplus we wouldn't be able to identify what was the perfect amount.

Is there any escape from the vicious cycle of surplus enjoyment or are we forever doomed to simply want more? Engaging with everything from The Joker film to pop songs and Thomas Aquinas to the history of pandemics, Žižek argues that recognising the society of enjoyment we live in for what it is can provide an explanation for the political impasses in which we find ourselves today. And if we begin, even a little bit, to recognise that the nuggets of 'enjoyment' we find in excess are as flimsy and futile, might we find a way out?

About the Author

Slavoj Žižek is a Hegelian philosopher, a Lacanian psychoanalyst, and a Communist. He is International Director at the Birkbeck Institute for Humanities, University of London, UK, Visiting Professor at the New York University, USA, and Senior Researcher at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.