A Love Beyond Belief: The Knight of Faith as Feminine, Revolutionary Subject.
Abstract
In the appendix of his latest book, Incontinence of the Void (2017), Žižek presents an account of how, according to his dialectical materialism, love can overcome death. This article situates Žižek’s argument in the context of his ontology and his theory of the subject to explicate how Žižek arrives at this position: one that appears, on the surface, to be inconsistent with a staunch materialist and atheistic stance. Building on Žižek’s references to Kierkegaard in this appendix, I will furthermore argue that the figure of the Knight of Faith from Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling can be as another instantiation of the revolutionary subject of the act. This figure can be said to participate in a type of love that overcomes death insofar as its attachment to objects of desire embodies the acephalous, undead drive that is not reducible to ontic or symbolic structures of reality.
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References
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