Alain Badiou, The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings

Alain Badiou, The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings

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In the uprisings of the Arab world, Alain Badiou discerns echoes of the European revolutions of 1848. In both cases, the object was to overthrow despotic regimes maintained by the great powers—regimes designed to impose the will of financial oligarchies. Both events occurred after what was commonly thought to be the end of a revolutionary epoch: in 1815, the final defeat of Napoleon; and in 1989, the fall of the Soviet Union. But the revolutions of 1848 proclaimed for a century and a half the return of revolutionary thought and action. Likewise, the uprisings underway today herald a worldwide resurgence in the liberating force of the masses—despite the attempts of the ‘international community’ to neutralize its power.

Badiou’s book salutes this reawakening of history, weaving examples from the Arab Spring and elsewhere into a global analysis of the return of emancipatory universalism.

Alain Badiou, Rhapsody For The Theatre: A Short Philosophical Treatise

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From Amazon,

"For Alain Badiou, theatre—unlike cinema—is the place for the staging of a truly emancipatory collective subject. In this sense theatre is, of all the arts, the one strictly homologous to politics: both theatre and politics depend on a limited set of texts or statements, collectively enacted by a group of actors or militants, which put a limit on the excessive power of the state. This explains why the history of theatre has always been inseparable from a history of state repression and censorship.

This definitive collection includes not only Badiou’s pamphlet Rhapsody for the Theatre but also essays on Jean-Paul Sartre, on the political destiny of contemporary theatre, and on Badiou’s own work as a playwright, as author of the Ahmed Tetralogy."  

Alain Badiou, The Incident at Antioch/L'Incident d'Antioche: A Tragedy in Three Acts/Tragédie en trois actes (French and English)

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NOTE: The format of this e-book has been modified. The printed book presented French and English text on facing pages. In the e-book, links at the beginning of each Act and Scene connect to French and English versions.

Translated by SUSAN SPITZER

Introduction by KENNETH REINHARD

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION:

"The Incident at Antioch" is a key play marking Alain Badiou's transition from classical Marxism to a "politics of subtraction" far removed from party and state. Written with striking eloquence and extraordinary poetic richness, and shifting from highly serious emotional and intellectual drama to surreal comic interlude, the work features statesmen, workers, and revolutionaries struggling to reconcile the nature and practice of politics. 

This bilingual edition presents "L'Incident d'Antioche" in its original French and an expertly executed English translation {the printed book version (perfect bound) is an ''en face'' bilingual edition}. 

Badiou adds a special preface, and an introduction by the scholar Kenneth Reinhard connects the play to Paul Claudel's 'The City', Saint Paul and the early history of the Church, and the innovative mathematical thinking of Paul Cohen. 

The translation includes Susan Spitzer's extensive notes clarifying allusions and quotations and hinting at Badiou's intentions. An interview with Badiou encompasses the play's settings, themes, and events, as well as his ongoing literary and conceptual experimentation on stage and off. 

KENNETH REINHARD is associate professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. He also wrote the "Introduction" to Badiou's "Plato's Republic: A Dialogue in 16 Chapters". Reinhard is the coauthor of "The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology" and "After Oedipus: Shakespeare in Psychoanalysis". 

SUSAN SPITZER is a frequent translator of Badiou’s works, most recently his "Plato's Republic: A Dialogue in 16 Chapters" and "Five Lessons on Wagner".

Alain Badiou, Metapolitics

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"Badiou indicts this approach, which reduces politics to a matter of opinion, thus eliminating any of its truly radical and emancipatory possibilities. Against this intellectual tradition, Badiou proposes instead the consideration of politics in terms of the production of truth and the affirmation of equality. He demands that the question of a possible "political truth" be separated from any notion of consensus or public opinion, and that political action be rethought in terms of the complex process that binds discussion to decision. Starting from this analysis, Badiou critically examines the thought of anthropologist and political theorist Sylvain Lazarus, Jacques Ranciere's writings on workers' history and democratic dissensus, the role of the subject in Althusser, as well as the concept of democracy and the link between truth and justice." 

Paul Ashton, A. J. Bartlett, Justin Clemens, The Praxis of Alain Badiou

Paul Ashton, A. J. Bartlett, Justin Clemens, The Praxis of Alain Badiou

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Following the publication of his magnum opus L'être et l'événement (Being and Event) in 1988, Alain Badiou has been acclaimed as one of France's greatest living philosophers. Since then, he has released a dozen books, including Manifesto for Philosophy, Conditions, Metapolitics and Logiques des mondes (Logics of Worlds), many of which are now available in English translation. Badiou writes on an extraordinary array of topics, and his work has already had an impact upon studies in the history of philosophy, the history and philosophy of science, political philosophy, aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and ontology. This volume takes up the challenge of explicating, extending and, in many places, criticizing Badiou's stunningly original theses. Above all, the essays collected here put Badiou's concepts to the test in a confrontation with the four great headings that he himself has identified as essential to our humanity: science, love, art and politics. Many of the contributors have already been recognized as outstanding translators of and commentators on Badiou's work; they appear here with fresh voices also destined to make a mark.