The Parallax View

Summary:

The Slovenian School Reading Group is a monthly reading group. Throughout 2026 the reading group will be focused on Slavoj Žižek’s The Parallax View. This work covers a wide range of topics, including philosophy, psychoanalysis, neuroscience, politics, literature, and film, and is divided into three main sections: philosophical, scientific, and political. The book has often been described as his magnum opus, as he attempts to outline his system of thought.

The goal of the Slovenian School Reading Group is to help us to think the politics of subjectivity and come to a refined understanding of the dialectical and unconscious dimensions of the subject’s life.

To get access to both the live sessions and recordings, sign up as a member to The Portal, or become a paid subscriber to Dimitri Crooijmans Actual Spirit Substack or Patreon:

Why The Parallax View?:

Our Focus

The Parallax View is Slavoj Žižek’s most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Žižek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Žižek is interested in the “parallax gap” separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an “impossible short circuit” of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Žižek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism.

Modes of parallax can be seen in different domains of today’s theory, from the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The Parallax View, Žižek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches its apogee in today’s brain sciences (according to which “nobody is home” in the skull, just stacks of brain meat—a condition Žižek calls “the unbearable lightness of being no one”); and the political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Žižek offers interludes that deal with more specific topics—including an ethical act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.

The Parallax View not only expands Žižek’s Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes.

Reading Group Leader: Dimitri Crooijmans

Dimitri Crooijmans is a philosopher and artist from the Netherlands. Ever since the beginning of Philosophy Portal, he has been publishing articles, short stories and songs inspired by an array of themes spanning metaphysics, ethics, politics and aesthetics. His writings, video-essays and podcasts can be found on his platform Actual Spirit. He sings and raps under the name Objet lil a. By bringing the highly extimate domains of music, literature and philosophy together he's embarking on a path that takes much repetition to bring about creative novelty. The result is both estranging and connective.

Schedule for 2026

All start time: 7pm CET / 1pm EST

Introduction by Dimitri Crooijmans

Conversation with Dimitri Crooijmans

Get involved

To get access to both the live sessions and recordings, sign up as a member to The Portal, or become a paid subscriber to Dimitri Crooijman’s Substack or Patreon:

Learn More About The Portal

The Portal is an online philosophy community building a future-oriented learning network organised around continental philosophy, radical theology, emancipatory politics and psychoanalytic theory.

Members get access to four live philosophical events every month, a year-long reading group, a year-long sharing circle, year-long courses, and our entire recorded history.