The Puppet and the Dwarf

The Perverse Core of Christianity

by Slavoj Žižek

Paperback

$30.00

Paperback

ISBN: 9780262740258

Pub date: August 29, 2003

Publisher: The MIT Press

196 pp., 5 x 8 in,

MIT Press Bookstore Penguin Random House Amazon Barnes and Noble Bookshop.org Indiebound Indigo Books a Million

eBook

$29.99

eBook

ISBN: 9780262261302

Pub date: August 29, 2003

Publisher: The MIT Press

196 pp., 5 x 8 in,

Penguin Random House

196 pp., 5 x 8 in,

Paperback
9780262740258
Published: August 2003
Publisher: The MIT Press

$30.00

eBook
9780262261302
Published: August 2003
Publisher: The MIT Press

$29.99

MIT Press Bookstore
Penguin Random House
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Bookshop.org
Indiebound
Indigo
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Description
Author(s)
Praise

One of our most daring intellectuals offers a Lacanian interpretation of religion, finding that early Christianity was the first revolutionary collective.

Slavoj Žižek has been called "an academic rock star" and "the wild man of theory"; his writing mixes astonishing erudition and references to pop culture in order to dissect current intellectual pieties. In The Puppet and the Dwarf he offers a close reading of today's religious constellation from the viewpoint of Lacanian psychoanalysis. He critically confronts both predominant versions of today's spirituality—New Age gnosticism and deconstructionist-Levinasian Judaism—and then tries to redeem the "materialist" kernel of Christianity. His reading of Christianity is explicitly political, discerning in the Pauline community of believers the first version of a revolutionary collective. Since today even advocates of Enlightenment like Jurgen Habermas acknowledge that a religious vision is needed to ground our ethical and political stance in a "postsecular" age, this book—with a stance that is clearly materialist and at the same time indebted to the core of the Christian legacy—is certain to stir controversy.

Slavoj Žižek, a philosopher and cultural critic, is Senior Researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London. He is the author of more than thirty books, including Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity, The Parallax View, The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic (with John Milbank), and Žižek's Jokes (Did you hear the one about Hegel and negation?), these five published by the MIT Press.

With this book Žižek consolidates his reputation as the foremost intellectual gadfly of the postmodern cosmopolis. For anyone interested in the contemporary vogue of the 'theological turn' or theories of 'religion without God,' The Puppet and the Dwarf is indispensable reading...If Socrates underwent a ten-year analysis with Jacques Lacan, the result would be Slavoj Žižek.
Richard Wolin, Distinguished Professor of History and Comparative Literature, the Graduate Center, City University of New York

A witty, informative trip...both erudite and accessible...
Rick Mitchell
Leonardo Reviews

His writing is bold, confident and contentious.
Julian Baggini
The Philosopher's Magazine

The Puppet and the Dwarf is Žižek's most compelling and passionate writing on Christianity to date.
Erik Davis
Bookforum

Quite possibly the most entertaining philosopher working today. Žižek knows how to think the unthinkable.
Jori Finkel
Village Voice

Slavoj Žižek may have the strongest 'brand identity'...of any cultural theorist now in the marketplace of ideas.
Scott McLemee
The Chronicle of Higher Education