The Dream Hunters
The Dream Hunters #1
Last week I picked up The Dream Hunters #1. It’s actually pretty good. I often feel like comic book publishers take advantage of the collector’s chronic nostalgia… but it felt really nice to buy a new Sandman single issue… ah, the fragility of the book as you carry it with two fingers around the comics shop… the smell of the new ink… To be honest, I can’t wait for issue 2 (out on the 3d of December).
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Modern life is rubbish: at the exact same time I will be teaching my first lecture on webcomics at UCL, Art Spiegelman will be a mere 15 minutes away signing at Forbidden Planet his new book. Why?
The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanties hosts very interesting series of panels and talks, and it’s great because they are free and open for all. Except when Zizek talks. (And the tickets sell out right away). I hate academic stardom. And the hypocrisy behind it. He is the “International Director” of the Institute. The least he could do is not charge at the door (he gets paid his salary anyways, I presume). The critique of capitalism sells well, doesn’t it…
(I think the work they do at the Institute is amazing; it’s one of those places you would want to spend as much time as possible in. I am basically interested in everything they do. But in the end, when talks are free they are not really “free”: students of the University of London and its colleges -especially international students- pay fortunes, and residents of the UK pay taxes that fund some of the funding bodies that allow these events to take place).
Don’t hate Zizek. He’s hilarious. And some of it’s intentional. Zizek’s charging for entrance could be considered a “provocation”.
But of course he’ll keep the money – so don’t love him either …
I don’t hate him as in *hate* him. So yeah, I don’t love him. I may read him, but I won’t pay to see him talk, man.
Did you go see Rosie Braidotti today?
No, wanted to, but stayed to “work” instead. I saw her last year, though… :( (It’s happening as we speak).
It isn’t only Zizek. I’ll put stars in here to protect the guilty, but J****h B****r allegedly charges upwards of $4000 to speak, and S****k apparently just sits on stage and smokes, answering questions from the floor but not presenting a paper.
I can’t make my mind up about Zizek. That ‘Perverts Guide to Cinema’ was ridiculously obvious if you knew anything about psychoanalysis, but it was entertaining and a good way in for those who don’t.
He also reminds me of Uncle Phil from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, for what it’s worth…
I liked the Pervert’s Guide to Cinema – but a lot of it was Zizek recycling Zizek, as was his book on How to Read Lacan, as was another book of his I read. The film thing was fun and interesting, though…
The Uncle Phil side is also true, if Uncle Phil was a little bit more hyperactive.
But I’ve fallen out with enough people over Zizek (literally, people have stopped talking to me because I’m unsure of his worth). Are all Zizek readers so fanatical?
Jon, I’m unsure of the worth of every single person I read, I mean, I’m unsure of the thoughts “contained” in their books, the people themselves are probably all more or less decent humans, just as I’m unsure of every single thought of my own. I mean, all those “thinkers”, they’re just people, they’re just making it up as they go along … trying to get it “right” but just guessing. Anyone who falls out w/you for your refusal to fetishize some big name or other has serious problems.
John, that’s pretty much the conclusion I came to, too.
I mean, I can understand people getting angry over me not liking Harry Potter (yes, this has happened), but I figured people that read something like Zizek might have more room for doubt (although Zizek doesn’t write like he has room for doubt).
It’s true, for some reason people expect me to be Zizek’s fan, and I’m not. Maybe it’s because I tend to doubt about anything getting tremendously popular very soon.
I get told off for writing so many “maybes” and “perhaps”. Though I have tried it myself, and perhaps many times I do sound like I am like that myself, I don’t really like authoritative tones. While I admire people who sound as if they are sure about something -some people actually are-, I tend to think that intellectual humility -or honesty- is lacking in academia nowadays. We have allowed the techniques of marketing and recruitment affect the way we work: most academics end up using most of their time finding bombastic terms to justify their funding.
People fell out with you for not liking Zizek? That sounds like the kind of thing that would happen in some ‘revelatory’ memoir detailing the worst vices of academia.
That said, I think people have started to stigmatise me as a ‘Freudian’!
Joe, if only it were academics who fell out with me for not liking Zizek. No, it was ‘civilians’. In general I’ve found academics don’t give a toss whether or not you like Zizek (or Harry Potter).
So are “civilians” into Zizek too? Wow.
My supervisor told me that Zizek was ’so-grad-student-in-2001′ and that I should expunge all references to him in my thesis!
I heeded her advice…
Can you paint a picture in words of a ‘civilian Zizekian’ for me? Are they like a highbrow version of Al Murray, Pub Landlord?
Is Al Murray married to a top-model too?
I hope so.