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The [[Sublime ]] [[Object ]] of [[Ideology]], New York: Verso, 1989.This is [[Zizek]]'s first major [[work ]] in [[English ]] and it remains one of his most accessible books. Mixing [[philosophy]], [[politics ]] and [[psychoanalysis ]] with examples from high and low [[culture]], he sets out in clear, explanatory detail his [[understanding ]] of [[Hegel]]'s [[dialectic]], the basic [[thesis ]] that underpins all his [[analyses]], and one which finds that [[contradiction ]] is an [[internal ]] condition of every [[identity]]. Central to this enterprise is the examination of the [[theory ]] which he returns to [[time ]] and again - that the [[subject ]] is the subject of a [[void]].

[[Looking ]] Awry: An Introduction to Jacques [[Lacan ]] through Popular Culture, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991.This [[text ]] is often cited as the easiest of Zizek's books to navigate, a reputation underscored by the many and varied references to [[popular culture ]] he makes throughout the text. However, as Zizek admits, this book should probably be subtitled "Everything He Wasn't Able to Put into The [[Sublime Object]]". Therefore, unless you already [[understand ]] the [[Lacanian ]] [[concepts ]] of the [[Real ]] and [[jouissance ]] (the two aspects of Lacan's work upon which he concentrates here), then some of the analyses will seem unnecessarily foreshortened. If, on the [[other ]] hand, you read The [[Sublime Object of Ideology ]] first, you will be better able to grasp the subtleties of his arguments concerning detective [[fiction]], pornography, [[democracy ]] and [[Hitchcock]].

For They [[Know ]] Not What They Do: [[Enjoyment ]] as a [[Political ]] Factor, New York: Verso, 1991.Presented as a sequel to [[The Sublime Object of Ideology]], this book examines the historical [[change ]] emblematized by the shift in the telling of the Rabinovitch [[joke ]] from that first book. In [[particular]], it analyses the re-emergence of militant [[nationalism ]] and [[racism ]] in the wake of the break-up of the socialist countries of Eastern [[Europe]]. Zizek [[identifies ]] the [[cause ]] of this re-emergence in an eruption of enjoyment. This book also contains an extended [[discussion ]] of the [[concept ]] of the vanishing mediator.

[[Enjoy ]] Your [[Symptom]]! [[Jacques Lacan ]] In Hollywood and Out, New York: Routledge, 1992.Picking up on one of the themes of [[For They Know Not What They Do]], Zizek here attends to the ideology of [[cynicism ]] - the [[fetishist ]] 'I know very well... but all the same... 'formulation which is one of the mainstays of his work. The book is [[structured ]] around five chapters, each of which endeavors to explain a fundamental Lacanian concept - [[letter]], [[woman]], [[repetition]], [[phallus ]] and [[father]]. Hollywood is once again the [[lure ]] in this text as Zizek elaborates each concept with reference to popular culture. However, as with [[Looking Awry]], the familiarity of the examples does not necessarily make this the most accessible of his books to read.In the second edition of the book (Routledge, 2000), Zizek added a chapter on the concept of [[reality]]. Using the [[film ]] The [[Matrix ]] as an example, he looks at the [[relationship ]] between the [[Symbolic ]] and [[the Real ]] and explains why the [[big Other ]] does not [[exist]].

Tarrying with the [[Negative]]: [[Kant]], Hegel and the Critique of Ideology, Durham: Duke [[University ]] Press, 1993.This is probably Zizek's lengthiest consideration of the radical negative gesture which he consistently identifies as the hallmark of '[[true]]' philosophy. Here he sets out the [[case ]] that Lacan is the [[third ]] [[philosopher ]] to accomplish this gesture after [[Plato ]] and Kant, both of whom also trumped the relativistic attitudes of their day by way of an act of even greater radicalization. While this may be the larger picture of the book, and part of his [[project ]] as a [[whole]], Zizek also produces his most sustained explanation of Hegel's philosophy here, as well as dissecting the [[cogito]]. As this synopsis suggests, [[Tarrying with the Negative ]] is, at [[times]], a difficult book but one which repays the effort of your labor.

[[The Metastases of Enjoyment]]: Six. Essays on Woman and [[Causality]], New York: Verso, 1994.This is one of Zizek's most rewarding books as it covers a range of crucial topics from the cause of the subject through the [[role ]] of the [[superego ]] to the [[impossibility ]] of the [[sexual ]] relationship. In each of the six essays, Zizek begins by asking (and ultimately answering) the kind of basic questions that anyone interested in [[Lacanian psychoanalysis ]] sooner or later wants to know the answers to. In the spirit of this fundamental questioning, the book's Appendix contains a [[self]]-interview in which Zizek poses to himself the kind of queries that bother what he [[terms ]] 'common [[knowledge]]' [[about ]] Lacanian theory as well as his own work. As a [[form ]] of self-interrogation is the elementary procedure of all his books, this interview represents Zizek in his [[essence ]] or, as he might put it (in Hegelese), Zizek in the mode of '[[in-itself]].

The Indivisible [[Remainder]]: An Essay on [[Schelling ]] and Related Matters, New York: Verso, 1996.This book forms part of a larger project for Zizek to reinvigorate the reputation of [[German ]] [[Idealism ]] which, for him, constitutes the bedrock of all philosophy. His particular hope with this monograph is that he enhances the [[perception ]] of Schelling's Ages of the [[World ]] as 'one of the seminal works of [[materialism]]', divining in it a forerunner to the works of [[Marx ]] and Lacan among [[others]]. The first part of the book endeavors to explain the Ages of the World, while the second part compares the reception of Schelling's work with the reception of Hegel's work using Lacan as the key to both. As can be imagined from this brief description, the first two parts of this volume make a [[complex ]] and demanding read. The third part of the book (the 'related matters' of the title) is only relatively more accessible, but contains interesting discussions of both [[cyberspace ]] and quantum [[physics]], which prefigure some of Zizek's later work.

The Plague of [[Fantasies]], New York: Verso, 1997.This is an extended explanation of the [[psychoanalytical ]] concept of [[fantasy]]. The plague' of the title refers to the deluge of pseudo-[[concrete ]] [[images ]] which Zizek places in an antagonistic relationship to the ever greater abstractions which determine our lives. As part of this discussion, Zizek advances one of his most considered analyses of cyberspace, which threatens to abolish the [[dimension ]] of Symbolic virtuality. Given that fantasy plays a significant role in Zizek's anatomy of the [[human ]] condition, the first chapter - "The Seven Veils of Fantasy" - clarifies the concept and makes the book a most suited for a first-time Zizek reader. As an added enticement, this work contains Zizek's famous [[Hegelian ]] [[analysis ]] of German, [[French ]] and English toilet designs.

The [[Ticklish Subject]]: The [[Absent ]] Centre of Political [[Ontology]], New York: Verso, 1999.Judging by the [[number ]] of articles it has spawned, this book is one of the most comprehensive monographs Zizek wrote. Its central thesis is that the "nursery tale"of the cogito which has dominated modern [[thought ]] (in its guise as the self-[[transparent ]] [[thinking ]] subject) is, in fact, a misnomer that fails to acknowledge the cogito's constitutive [[moment ]] of [[madness]]. Structured in [[three ]] parts, the book takes to task critics of [[Cartesian ]] [[subjectivity ]] in the fields of German idealism, French political philosophy and Anglo-American [[cultural ]] studies, directing blame for contemporary [[scientific ]] and technological catastrophes away from the cogito and laying it squarely at the door of [[capitalism]]. While the overall [[philosophical ]] argument is enjoyable in itself, Zizek also delivers a series of fascinating local insights which range across all aspects of political, cultural and [[social ]] [[life]]. If parts of the book are very demanding, it does reward the reader's patience.

[[The Fragile Absolute]], or Why the [[Christian ]] Legacy is Worth Fighting For, New York: Verso, 2000.As Zizek himself confesses, it might seem strange for a [[Marxist ]] to [[defend ]] the legacy of [[Christianity ]] in an age which has seen the re-emergence of obscurantist [[religious ]] thought. However, part of the broad remit of this compact book is an attempt to resuscitate the subversive core of Christianity, the "act of shooting at oneself" (or of radical negativity) which forms the centrepiece of Zizek's analysis of Schelling in The Abyss of [[Freedom ]] and of [[Descartes ]] in Cogito and the [[Unconscious]]. Proposing that the only way to liberate oneself from the grip of existing [[social reality ]] is to [[renounce ]] the [[fantasmatic ]] [[supplement ]] that attaches us to it, he cites any number of examples from Sethe's act of infanticide in Toni Morrison [[Beloved]], through Keyser Soeze's massacre of his own [[family ]] in the [[Usual Suspects]], up to the supreme [[instance ]] of such a gesture in the Crucifixion. This is an accessible work which underscores the [[utopian ]] aspect of his discussion of the "[[night of the world]]" in previous books.

[[The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime]], Seattle: Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, 2000.Using [[material ]] from The Fragile Absolute, while building on previous analyses from The Metastases of Enjoyment, this book-essay is an examination of [[David Lynch]]'s Lost Highway. The main contention is that the fims functions as a form of meta-commentary on the opposition between the clasic and [[postmodern ]] [[femme ]] fatale.

The [[Spectre ]] is Still Roaming Around, Zagreb: Arkzin, 2000.This book/essay was written as the introduction to a 150th commemorative edition of Marx's The [[Communist ]] Manifesto. Much of the material is a recapitulation of the [[ideas ]] in the last chapter of [[The Ticklish Subject]]; however Zizek [[structures ]] it around a consideration of the [[value ]] of Marx's work today. He argues that, despite its revolutionary shortcomings, the Manifesto's analyzes of the destructive effects of [[capital ]] are more aplicable to the world of [[late capitalism ]] - a world in which the brutal imposition of a [[unified ]] [[global ]] [[market ]] threatens all local ethnic traditions, including the very form of the [[nation]]-[[state ]] - than they ever were when it was originally written.

[[NATO ]] as the [[Left ]] Hand of God, Zagreb: Arkzin, 2000.As with The Spectre Still Roaming Around, this book/essay focuses on Zizek's critique of the NATO bombing of former [[Yugoslavia]]. According to him, this [[action ]] dramatized a [[false ]] alternative between the New World [[Order ]] and the neo-racist nationalists opposing it. For Zizek, on the other hand, these are the two sides of the same coin - the [[New World Order]], in which NATO is the military arm of multinational capitalism, itself breeds the monstrosities, such as Slobodan [[Milosevic]], that it fights.

Did Somebody Say [[Totalitarianism]]? Five Essays in the (Mis)Use of a [[Notion]], New York: Verso, 2001.This combative book argues that totalitarianism is an [[ideological ]] notion which has been used by the [[liberal ]] democratic consensus to impugn the political left's critique of that consensus with the atrocities of the political [[right]], thereby disabling effective political thought. Zizek examines five aspects of totalitarianism and concludes that the problem with the notion is the very [[thing ]] that makes such a designation possible in the first [[place ]] - the liberal democratic consensus (among whose members he includes just about everybody, damning tham as a bunch of "conformist scoundrles"). This work is more explicitlly political in its [[content]], ending as it does with the refrain for increased socialization "in some form or [[another]]."

[[The Fright of Real Tears]]: Krzysztof [[Kieslowski ]] between Theory and Post-theory, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.This book is an [[intervention ]] in the on-going debate in the field of film studies which is [[split ]] between Theory (anything loosely affiliated with [[structuralism ]] and [[post-structuralism]]) and Post-theory (anything loosely affiliated with a dislike of structuralism and post-structuralism). The main cause for antipathy for the Post-theorists is the dominance of crtain Lacanian concepts in the field of film studies. Zizek's argument here, through the [[reading ]] of Kieslowski's flims, is that these Lacanian concepts were employed piecemeal without either due [[regard ]] for their philosophical matrix or for thier implications. Zizek methodologically debunks the lamentable conclusions of Post-theory as he explains the workings and value of Lacan's insights.

On [[Belief]], New York: Routledge, 2001.Zizek returns to the territory of The Fragile Absolute in what he describes as a "self-critical" mood. Although advertized as an analysis of belief, the main concept concept in the book is the call for a politics of the [[ethical ]] act, one which rejects the comforts of [[pragmatism ]] and repeats the hard-line and unrepentant [[ethic ]] of Saint [[Paul ]] and [[Lenin]]. As such this represents one of Zizek's entreaties for us to leap into the "night of the world". This accessible book can be profitably read with little prior knowledge of Zizek's work.