Zahi Zalloua, "Žižek on Race: Towards an Anti-Racist Future" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
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Welcome back to the New Books Network. I am your host, Steven Dozem. The Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek. has a number of prolific quips on various cultural and political issues around race and other things. Found either in short YouTube clips or lengthy books and have gained a lot of attention, mu much of it admittedly confused and occasionally offended and frustrated. Part of this is likely due to Zizek's style which tends to jump around in a blur of philosophical and cultural references, sometimes obscuring what his actual point is. However, his eclectic style shouldn't deter us from trying to use Zizek's theories of fantasy and ideology to understand the racial dimensions of our current political situation.
This is what my guest today, Zahiz Zelua, is here to discuss with his new book, Zizek on Race Towards an Anti-Racist Future, which was released by Bloomsbury just last month. Zahiz Zelua is the Cushing Eels professor of philosophy and literature and professor of French and interdisciplinary studies at Whitman College. He is also the author of Continental Philosophy and the Palestinian Question Beyond the the Jew and the Greek, as well as theories, autoimmunity, skepticism, literature, and philosophy. So Zahi, welcome to the New Books Network. Uh thank you, Stephen. Uh so to start, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what your main research interests tend to be?
Yeah. So I tend to work at the intersection between philosophy and literature. Um interested in questions of race, gender, representation, politics, ethics, the state of globalization. So these are kind of my general areas of interest. А резенки я бикінку до канав Жікин имперім одеверсал. Thinking of a universal politics. And J Jack on race is one way of thinking um the question of race through kind of universalist perspective.
All right, so to start we should get a few key terms or ideas on the table. One of the first you bring up is what Zizek, following Sarah Ahmed, calls civil racism or racism with a friendly face. This points to Zizek's popular quip about capitalism with a friendly face, so can you maybe unpack civil racism a bit?
Sure. Uh so for me civil racism um is another form of racism. It is a racism unaware of itself as racist. So he goes, How can I be a racist? Right? I I if the I here refers to a white subject, I profess my respect for uh for the non white other. So how can I be accused of being a racist? Um so here civil racism is a racism that expects non whites to behave according to the desires of whites. You can celebrate your culture or way of life, but make sure to do it with moderation.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:21
2
What is the central focus of Zahi Zalloua’s new book on Žižek and race?
6:21–17:28
3
How does Zalloua define “civil racism” and why is it a hidden form of racism?
17:28–31:32
4
What are Žižek’s distinctions between subjective, symbolic and systemic violence?
31:32–40:22
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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