Badiou And His Interlocutors

This is a unique collection presenting work by Alain Badiou and commentaries on his philosophical theories. It includes three lectures by Badiou, on contemporary politics, the infinite, cinema and theatre and two extensive interviews with Badiou – one concerning the state of the contemporary situation and one wide ranging interview on all facets of his work and engagements. It also includes six interventions on aspects of Badiou's work by established scholars in the field, addressing his concept of history, Lacan, Cinema, poetry, and feminism; and four original essays by young and established scholars in Australia and New Zealand addressing the key concerns of Badiou's 2015 visit to the Antipodal region and the work he presented there. With new material by Badiou previously unpublished in English this volume is a valuable overview of his recent thinking. Critical responses by distinguished and gifted Badiou scholars writing outside of the European context make this text essential reading for anyone interested in the development and contemporary reception of Badiou's thought.

"This is a unique collection presenting work by Alain Badiou and commentaries on his philosophical theories. It includes three lectures by Badiou, on contemporary politics, the infinite, cinema and theatre and two extensive interviews with Badiou -- one concerning the state of the contemporary situation and one wide ranging interview on all facets of his work and engagements. It also includes six interventions on aspects of Badiou's work by established scholars in the field, addressing his concept of history, Lacan, Cinema, poetry, and feminism; and four original essays by young and established scholars in Australia and New Zealand addressing the key concerns of Badiou's 2015 visit to the Antipodal region and the work he presented there. With new material by Badiou previously unpublished in English this volume is a valuable overview of his recent thinking. Critical responses by distinguished and gifted Badiou scholars writing outside of the European context make this text essential reading for anyone interested in the development and contemporary reception of Badiou's thought."--Bloomsbury Publishing

Plato's Republic is one of the most well-known and widely discussed texts in the history of philosophy, but how might we get to the heart of this work today, 2500 years after it was originally composed? Alain Badiou invents a new genre in order to breathe fresh life into Plato's text and restore its universality. Rather than producing yet another critical commentary, he has retranslated the work from the original Greek and, by making various changes, adapted it for our times. In this innovative reimagining of a classic text, Badiou has removed all references specific to ancient Greek society, from the endless exchanges about the moral courage of poets to those political considerations that were only of interest to the aristocratic elite. On the other hand, Badiou has expanded the range of cultural references: here philosophy is firing on all cylinders, and Socrates and his companions are joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud and Hegel. They demonstrate the enduring nature of true philosophy, always ready to move with the times. Moreover, Badiou the dramatist has made the Socratic dialogue a true oratorial contest: in his version of the Republic, the interlocutors have more in mind than merely agreeing with the Master. They stand up to him, put him on the spot and thereby show thought in motion. Through this work of writing, scholarship and philosophy, we are able, for the first time, to read a version of Plato's text which is alive, stimulating and directly relevant to our world today.

From Antiphilosophy to Worlds and from Beckett to Wittgenstein, the 110 entries in this dictionary provide detailed explanations and engagements with Badious's key concepts and major interlocutors.

DIVExamines the political thinking of French philosopher of Alain Badiou, whose theories of ontology and mathematics have set him apart from many of his post-structuralist contemporaries./div

The essays in this volume, including a new piece by Badiou himself, reflect the formative traditions that shape the background of his political thought. They intervene critically and evaluate the present state of Badiou's work, while also breaking new ground and creating new thresholds of political thought. It includes a range of established scholars and rising theorists of the Badiou-effect, each engaging with the critical question of 'how to transmit the exception' politically, at the intersection of contemporary anti-imperial polemics and debates that strike at the heart of the post-modern condition (Lyotard), deconstruction (Derrida), psychoanalysis (Lacan-Zizek), biopolitics (Hardt and Negri) and pedagogy (Ranciere).

Plato's Republic is one of the most well-known and widely discussed texts in the history of philosophy, but how might we get to the heart of this work today, 2500 years after it was originally composed? Alain Badiou invents a new genre in order to breathe fresh life into Plato's text and restore its universality. Rather than producing yet another critical commentary, he has retranslated the work from the original Greek and, by making various changes, adapted it for our times. In this innovative reimagining of a classic text, Badiou has removed all references specific to ancient Greek society, from the endless exchanges about the moral courage of poets to those political considerations that were only of interest to the aristocratic elite. On the other hand, Badiou has expanded the range of cultural references: here philosophy is firing on all cylinders, and Socrates and his companions are joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud and Hegel. They demonstrate the enduring nature of true philosophy, always ready to move with the times. Moreover, Badiou the dramatist has made the Socratic dialogue a true oratorial contest: in his version of the Republic, the interlocutors have more in mind than merely agreeing with the Master. They stand up to him, put him on the spot and thereby show thought in motion. Through this work of writing, scholarship and philosophy, we are able, for the first time, to read a version of Plato's text which is alive, stimulating and directly relevant to our world today.

Reinterpreting Badiou's philosophy in light of both his persistent, reverent invocations of the German-Jewish poet Paul Celan, and his long-term engagement with Samuel Beckett, Badiou, Poem and Subject fundamentally reassesses Badiou's radical departure from the legacy of Martin Heidegger, and his wholesale rejection of philosophies that would, in the wake of twentieth-century violence and beyond, proclaim their own end or completion. For Badiou, both writers, from the terminus of Literary Modernism, affirm novel conceptions of subjectivity capable of transcending the historical conditions of their presentation: Celan's collective and ephemeral subject of 'anabasis', and Beckett's disjunctive 'Two' of love. Blending close textual analyses with critical reflections on Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe and Adorno, among others, Tom Betteridge argues that Badiou's innovative readings of both Celan's poetry and the 'latent poem' in Beckett's late prose are crucial to understanding his significance in the history of twentieth-century French philosophy and its German heritage, offering a significant contribution to a growing field of interest in Badiou's philosophical encounter with poetry, and its political ramifications.