Books by Mladen Dolar

A Voice and Nothing More

by Mladen Dolar

A new, philosophically grounded theory of the voice—the voice as the lever of thought, as one of the paramount embodiments of the psychoanalytic object.

Plutarch tells the story of a man who plucked a nightingale and finding but little to eat exclaimed: "You are just a voice and nothing more." Plucking the feathers of meaning that cover the voice, dismantling the body from which the voice seems to emanate, resisting the Sirens' song of fascination with the voice, concentrating on "the voice and nothing more": this is the difficult task that philosopher Mladen Dolar relentlessly pursues in this seminal work.

The voice did not figure as a major philosophical topic until the 1960s, when Derrida and Lacan separately proposed it as a central theoretical concern. In A Voice and Nothing More Dolar goes beyond Derrida's idea of "phonocentrism" and revives and develops Lacan's claim that the voice is one of the paramount embodiments of the psychoanalytic object (objet a). Dolar proposes that, apart from the two commonly understood uses of the voice as a vehicle of meaning and as a source of aesthetic admiration, there is a third level of understanding: the voice as an object that can be seen as the lever of thought. He investigates the object voice on a number of different levels—the linguistics of the voice, the metaphysics of the voice, the ethics of the voice (with the voice of conscience), the paradoxical relation between the voice and the body, the politics of the voice—and he scrutinizes the uses of the voice in Freud and Kafka. With this foundational work, Dolar gives us a philosophically grounded theory of the voice as a Lacanian object-cause.

Lubitsch Can't Wait: A Collection of Ten Philosophical Discussions on Ernst Lubitsch's Film Comedy

by Mladen Dolar, Ivana Novak, Kre&#269, i&#269, Jela

Ernst Lubitsch, the great author of Hollywood comedy and pioneer of such genres as the sophisticated romantic comedy, the musical, and the screwball comedy, is a relatively overlooked figure in mainstream film theory. In this collection, renowned world thinkers and philosophers position Lubitsch as the premium director of subversive cinema, reflecting on his attitude toward love and politics which correspond to contemporary issues.Followers of the Hegelian, Marxist, Freudian, Lacanian, and Deleuzian traditions discuss thephilosophical, political, and ethical dimensions of Lubitsch's late Hollywood work. They focus on love as stealing, the ethics of style, and comedy in times of austerity in the director's masterpiece, Trouble in Paradise (1932); answer the question of why comedy is always polygamous; discuss links between masochism, melancholia, and ideology in Ninotchka(1939); celebrate the ethical gesture of comedy in To Be or Not to Be (1942); and promote the revolutionary comic spirit of Lubitsch's last directorial effort, Cluny Brown (1946). These essays' witty, subversive, and provocative approaches highlight Lubitsch's unique understanding of love, sex, comedy, and politics and idiosyncratic conception of totalitarian"nightmares" and capitalistic "paradise," countering the non-dialectic and politically correct discourse of mainstream and independent cinema today.

Opera's Second Death

by Slavoj Zizek, Mladen Dolar

Opera's Second Death is a passionate exploration of opera - the genre, its masterpieces, and the nature of death. Using a dazzling array of tools, Slavoj Zizek and coauthor Mladen Dolar explore the strange compulsions that overpower characters in Mozart and Wagner, as well as our own desires to die and to go to the opera.