Political Theology and Comedy: Žižek through Rose Tinted Glasses

Pound, Marcus

Abstract

This paper defends the centrality of comedy as paradigmatic of political theology by reading the project of Slavoj Žižek through the lens of the late British philosopher Gillian Rose. I begin by exploring Rose’s recovery of Hegel as means to make good on Marxist social critique with particular reference to her non-foundational or ‘speculative reading’ of Hegel. I then explore the degree to which her work stands in advance of Žižek’s project, arguing that it is her work that makes his project possible in the first place. I turn next to the reception of Hegel and comedy, and in particular the place Rose awards comedy in Hegel’s work, before exploring the central differences between Rose and Žižek’s work: law verses the symbolic, and the respective shapes of their political theology. Returning to Rose’s remarks on comedy qua law I ask in the final analysis: how should we understand the relationship between political theology and comedy? Rose I suggest offers a coherent alternative to Žižek whilst retaining nonetheless the commitment to Hegelian-Marxist social theory.

Citation

Pound, M. (2015). Political Theology and Comedy: Žižek through Rose Tinted Glasses. Crisis and critique, 2(1), 171-191

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 26, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Feb 9, 2015
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2015
• Deposit Date: Oct 26, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 15, 2018
• Journal: Crisis and critique
• Print ISSN: 2311-8172
• Electronic ISSN: 2311-5475
• Publisher: Crisis and Critique
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 171-191
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1419366
• Publisher URL: http://crisiscritique.org/uploads-new/Pound.pdf