Ok it wasn’t really a fight. But the NYPL’s Paul Holdengräber certainly tried to frame the opening night of this year’s ‘Live from the NYPL‘ lecture season as a big ticket brain brawl. In one corner - Bernard-Henri Lévy, French ‘Superstar’ philosopher, and in the other corner Slovoj Zizek - ‘Slovanian Elvis’ of cultural theory. Both men are pushing new books that deal with the legacy of 1968 and the current state of the intellectual left. Heady stuff to be sure. Levy made the case that leftists have a better framework to fight fundamentalism than the right. Zizek expanded on one of the major themes from his book, Violence, that liberal attitudes towards charity, organic foods, and tolerance tend to depoliticize important issues like globalism, climate change, and racism. Holdengräber got perhaps the best comeback line when he reminded Zizek that the NYPL is actual Carnegie largess. Somehow the conversation devolved into a debate over who had a better understanding of the state of Israel (All three men made vows to tour the Holy Land together in the near future).
After the show I caught a few men using “Who won?” as a pick-up line on the library steps. You can decide that one for yourself: WNYC is pleased to present the entirety of the Zizek/Levy lecture here on the Art.Cult blog. Thanks to Live from the NYPL, we look forward to another great season.
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My friend George saw Zizek in Cambridge the night before and he sent me a tantalizing text message “Zizek is talking about Kung Fu Panda!” Wish I could have been there for that one… update: Kung Fu Panda is a popular topic for Zizek, witness a recent NYmag Vulture post
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:29 pm
I wanted to beg someone to record this, but I didnt know who to ask. Thank you for doing the work.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:16 am
this is a great recording.I just read a comment about this “debate” in a Greek newspaper.I coud not find this anywhere else in the web.thank you very much