1. Research Library

        Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates

        Slavoj Žižek

        London: Verso 2002

        ISBN 9781859844212

      1. This book is Žižek ’s response to 9/11 and was originally published in a small edition in New York in November 2001. The central argument in the book is that global capitalism is as ‘fundamentalist’ as radical Islam and that because America aided the rise of Muslim fundamentalism it is complicit in this event coming to pass. Among the other highly controversial claims here is that disaster movies and Hollywood have created a space in which it is possible to crash planes into buildings and have them fall down-that our fascination with destruction in effect called this act into being. He also importantly argued for a more nuanced reading of the political situation, reacting against the Bushian threat ‘you’re either with us or against us,’ which seemed to silence critical Left voices in the US directly after the attacks.