[lbo-talk] Badiou buzz

Dennis Claxton ddclaxton at earthlink.net
Fri Aug 28 12:26:51 PDT 2009


Stumbled on this from the Chronicle of Higher Education, June 2006. I found it on a blog from a Poli Sci prof named Jodi Dean whose stuff looks interesting. She wrote a book called Solidarity of Strangers: Feminism after Identity Politics, edited a book with Geert Lovink, and writes a lot about Zizek. Her blog is called I Cite:

http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2006/03/badiou_buzz_boo.html#more

"Alain Badiou Creates a Buzz With Views of Philosophy's Relevance to Other Disciplines" by Richard Byrne

Is Alain Badiou the next great French import into American academe? A hundred or so people squeezed into a small open space on the second floor of Labyrinth Books, near Columbia University, on Monday night to find out at a public discussion between Mr. Badiou, a professor of philosophy at Ecole Normale Superieure, in Paris, with intellectual roots in Marxism and in the upheavals of 1968 in France and Simon Critchle, a professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research and the University of Essex.

The forum was a lively introduction to Mr. Badiou's key ideas -- straight from the philosopher's mouth. And introductions are most likely in order. The buzz surrounding Mr. Badiou in America has been created by a flurry of publishing activity, including eight new books in translation in the past two years.

Significant emerging trends in American academe have helped to raise Mr. Badiou's profile. His philosophy explicitly aims to unify disparate branches of learning, a tactic that resonates strongly with an increasing interest in working across disciplines in the United States. His books also seek to harness the contemplative strengths of philosophy to love, art, and radical politics.

In his introduction, Mr. Critchley noted that there was a "tremendous thirst" for Mr. Badiou's far-ranging work in a time when there is "frustration and fatigue with theoretical paradigms." He argued that Mr. Badiou's work is "refreshing, direct, and concise."

The increasing popularity of Mr. Badiou's work also can be explained by his public stance, which is strikingly hopeful. Philosophy is not in twilight, he said. Literary studies, psychology, science, and mathematics animate it and inform it.

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