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Slavoj Zizek is one of the great minds of our time. Commentators have hailed the Slovenian thinker as "the most formidably brilliant exponent of psychoanalysis, indeed of cultural theory in general, to have emerged in Europe for some decades."
The originality of Zizek's contribution to Western intellectual history lies in his extraordinary fusion of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, continental philosophy (in particular his anti-essentialist readings of Hegel), and Marxist political theory. He lucidly illustrates this sublime thought with examples drawn from literary and popular culture, including not only Shakespeare, Wagner, or Kafka, but also film noir, soap operas, cartoons, and dirty jokes, which often border on the ridiculous. "I am convinced of my proper grasp of some Lacanian concept, " Zizek writes, "only when I can translate it successfully into the inherent imbecility of popular culture." The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch's Lost Highway characteristically offers a flamboyant parade of topics that reaches far beyond the scope of Lynch’s movie, delving into film theory, ethics, politics, and cyberspace.