Žižek/Questions/Failing

Abstract

In this article I am primarily concerned with presenting Slavoj Žižek as a legal theorist because his diverse writings, which have often been relegated to other disciplines, position him as an important contributor to law and public discourse. I seek to illuminate how he mediates and interrogates the law and demonstrate how his thought is important to the lives of legal thinkers, questions of success and the law, capitalism, political practice, and terrorism. Because Žižek’s scholarship is interdisciplinary and expansive, this article will provide a starting point for further analysis of these subjects with the hope of opening up a broader discursive space where legal scholars might more readily critically engage Žižek’s writings. The article will also be written using Žižekian analysis, showing how Žižek can help us better investigate legal theory.

Keywords: Slavoj Žižek, psychoanalysis, Sciullo, terrorism, critical legal studies, poststructuralism, legal theory, identity politics, Jacques Lacan