Responses to the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek have been, like Zizek himself, extreme. Critics have accused him of charlatanism on the one hand, while others have lauded his genius, especially as a public intellectual, on the other. This makes it difficult to find any kind of nuanced or interesting critical appraisal of his work.
At its best Zizek's work provides a new foundation of dialectical philosophy, beyond the glitz of stardom or oversimplified sinister disdain. Zizek Responds! combines philosophers and theorists engaging with Zizek's philosophy in order to explore its unnoticed implications, its conceptual problems, or its unrealized potential. With detailed and lively responses from Zizek himself, this book offers an unique insight into how this thinker might explain, clarify and hone some of his most controversial and misunderstood ideas. At once an introduction to Zizek's most important concepts and a rare and novel insight into his thoughts on the criticisms of his work, this is indispensible reading for both Zizekians and their critics.

Dominik Finkelde (ed.) is Professor of Epistemology and Contemporary Philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy, Germany. He is the author and editor of many books on German Idealism and thinkers such as Kant, Benjamin, Lacan, Badiou and Zizek including Parallax: The Dialectics of Mind and World, ed. with C. Menke and S. Zizek (Bloomsbury, 2021).
Todd McGowan (ed.) is Professor of Theory and Film at the University of Vermont, USA. He is the author of many books on politics, film and contemporary theory including Universality and Identity Politics (2020).
Slavoj Zizek (author) is a Slovenian philosopher holding Professorships across the world. He is one of the most prominent, popular and controversial philosophers working today.

Introduction, Dominik Finkelde and Todd McGowan

Part I: Ontology
1. Cake or Doughnut?: Zizek and German Idealist Emergentisms, Adrian Johnston (University of New Mexico, USA)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Johnston

2. Truth as Bacchanalian Revel: Zizek and the Risks of Irony, Dominik Finkelde (Munich School of Philosophy, Germany)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Finkelde

3. Zizek and the Retroactivity of the Real, Graham Harman (SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, USA)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Harman

4. Slavoj Zizek's Hegel, Robert Pippin (University of Chicago, USA)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Pippin

Part II: Ideology
5. Slavoj Zizek Is Not Violent Enough, Todd McGowan (University of Vermont, USA)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to McGowan

6. Zizek's Foundationless Building: Ideology Critique as an Existentialist Choice, Hilary Neroni (University of Vermont, USA)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Neroni

7. The Subject is Not Enough, Henrik Jøker Bjerre (Aalborg University, Denmark)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Bjerre

8. Zizek and Derrida: Hospitality, Hostility, and the "Real" Neighbor, Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College, USA)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Zalloua

9. The Politics of Incompleteness: On Zizek's Theory of the Subject, Nadia Bou Ali (American University of Beirut, Lebanon)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Nadia Bou Ali

Part III: Psychoanalysis
10. Reading the Illegible: On Zizek's Interpretation of Lacan's 'Kant with Sade', Dany Nobus (Brunel University London, UK)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Nobus

11. Raising a Mundane Object to the Dignity of the Thing: When Desire is Not the Desire of the Other, Mari Ruti (University of Toronto, Canada)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Ruti

12. Hoping Against Hope: Zizek, Jouissance, and the Impossible, Jennifer Friedlander (Pomona College, USA)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Friedlander

13. Psychoanalysis in Exile: Ramblings Without a World, Duane Rousselle (University of Tyumen, Russia)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Rousselle

14. Harpo's Grin: Rethinking Lacan's Unthinkable "Thing", Richard Boothby (Loyola University Maryland, USA)

Slavoj Zizek, Response to Boothby

Notes on the Contributors
Index