SOURCE: Žižek, Slavoj, and Christopher Hanlon. “Psychoanalysis and the Post-Political: An Interview with Slavoj Žižek.” New Literary History 32, no. 1 (winter 2001): 1-21.

In the following interview, Žižek discusses his later critical works, the criticism surrounding his use of Lacanian theory, and the developing political situation in the former Yugoslavia.

For many, Jacques Lacan represents postmodern theory at its height—that is, at its worst. Lacan, so say his detractors, made a career out of obscurantism, and may not even have believed very much of what he said. Noam Chomsky once indicated such a hypothesis when he explained that “my frank opinion is that [Lacan] was a conscious charlatan, and he was simply playing games with the Paris intellectual community to see how much absurdity he could produce and still be taken seriously.”¹ Even Lacanians might find it in their hearts to forgive Chomsky such a remark...