What do sex doll sales, locust swarms and a wired-brain pig have to do with the coronavirus pandemic? Everythingâaccording to that "Giant of Lubliana," the inimitable Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Ĺ˝iĹžek.
In this exhilarating sequel to his acclaimed Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World, Ĺ˝iĹžek delves into some of the more surprising dimensions of lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancingâand the increasingly unruly opposition to them by "response fatigued" publics around the world.
ŽiŞek examines the ripple effects on the food supply of harvest failures caused by labor shortages and the hyper-exploitation of the global class of care workers, without whose labor daily life would be impossible. Through such examples he pinpoints the inability of contemporary capitalism to safeguard effectively the public in times of crisis.
Writing with characteristic daring and zeal, ŽiŞek ranges across critical theory, pop-culture, and psychoanalysis to reveal the troubling dynamics of knowledge and power emerging in these viral times.