Slavoj Žižek was born in Slovenia in 1949. At the University of Ljubljana he studied philosophy and was later offered a position to study psychoanalysis with Lacan's disciple, J.-A. Miller, at the University of Paris VIII. On returning to Ljubljana he took up a research post and founded the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis. Žižek was very active in the Alternative Movement in Slovenia, and in 1990 stood for the presidency in the first multiparty elections.