Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Zizek is a cultural philosopher. He's a senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities of the University of London.

In Poland, it is no secret that the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is packing governing institutions with its lackeys, misusing public media, rewarding cronies and undermining the independence of the courts.

Nonetheless, PiS trounced Poland's opposition parties in the European Parliament election in May.

In the piece, entitled, "As Putin has proven, political madness is the new status quo," Zizek recalled that the Russian president said his country "still has the greatest nuclear potential in the world - but nobody listened to us. Listen to us now.

Leftist thinkers, journalists, writers, radical priests and historians from all over the western Balkans, Greece and Germany, are descending on Sibenik in Croatia for four days of debates, round tables, lectures, exhibitions, book promotions and movie projections.