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Political Theology and Comedy: Žižek through Rose Tinted Glasses

Pound, Marcus

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Abstract

This paper defends the centrality of comedy as paradigmatic of political theology by reading the project of Slavoj Žižek through the lens of the late British philosopher Gillian Rose. I begin by exploring Rose’s recovery of Hegel as means to make good on Marxist social critique with particular reference to her non-foundational or ‘speculative reading’ of Hegel. I then explore the degree to which her work stands in advance of Žižek’s project, arguing that it is her work that makes his project possible in the first place. I turn next to the reception of Hegel and comedy, and in particular the place Rose awards comedy in Hegel’s work, before exploring the central differences between Rose and Žižek’s work: law verses the symbolic, and the respective shapes of their political theology. Returning to Rose’s remarks on comedy qua law I ask in the final analysis: how should we understand the relationship between political theology and comedy? Rose I suggest offers a coherent alternative to Žižek whilst retaining nonetheless the commitment to Hegelian-Marxist social theory.

Citation

Pound, M. (2015). Political Theology and Comedy: Žižek through Rose Tinted Glasses. Crisis and critique, 2(1), 171-191

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 26, 2015
Online Publication Date Feb 9, 2015
Publication Date Jan 1, 2015
Deposit Date Oct 26, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Crisis and critique
Print ISSN 2311-8172
Electronic ISSN 2311-5475
Publisher Crisis and Critique
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 2
Issue 1
Pages 171-191
Publisher URL http://crisiscritique.org/uploads-new/Pound.pdf

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