Arts: Slavoj ?i?ek and Fredric Jameson on The Wire

Now playing: Slate V, a video-only site from the world's leading online magazine. Visit Slate V at www.slatev.com.
Brow Beat Slavoj Žižek and Fredric Jameson on The Wire By David Haglund Posted Thursday, Mar 01, 2012, at 06:36 PM ET Last week, Slavoj Žižek—the clown prince of contemporary Marxist philosophy, star of The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, scene-stealer of Examined Life, and subject of the celebrated documentary Žižek!—spoke at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities on a subject he was born to tackle: The Wire. The audio of the lecture is now online, and if, like me, you enjoy not only discussion of The Wire but listening to Žižek ramble grandiloquently in his wonderful Slovenian accent, it makes for an amusing and occasionally provocative hour and a half of intellectual entertainment. Žižek takes David Simon's comparison of The Wire to Greek tragedy seriously, seeing the show as an expression of its polis, Baltimore, in a manner not unlike the works of the classical tragedians. The show may even be "more tragic" than Greek tragedy, he says, since the fate of its characters is dictated not by supernatural figures, but by the institutions that actually shape our lives. But Žižek also has reservations about the series. Here he distinguishes his position from that of Fredric Jameson, another titan of contemporary Marxist theory, who published an essay on the show in 2010 called "Realism and Utopia in The Wire."* (You can download it here.) Jameson argued that one of the show's distinctive features is that "Utopian elements are introduced, without fantasy or wish fulfillment, into the construction of the fictive, yet utterly realistic events." The show thus hints at the possibility of breaking out of the contemporary ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Fiery Conservative Journalist Andrew Breitbart Dead at 43 Saletan: Some Media Are Accusing Romney of Flip-Flopping on Contraception. He Hasn't. Why Is the Car Industry in Detroit, Anyway?	Advertisement
Manage your newsletters subscription: Unsubscribe | Forward to a Friend | Advertising Information
Ideas on how to make something better? Send an e-mail to slatenewsletter@nl.slate.com. Copyright 2011 The Slate Group | Privacy Policy The Slate Group | c/o E-mail Customer Care | 1350 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 410 | Washington, D.C. 20036