ok. i've been noticing for awhile now that all the kewl kidz drop badiou's name. does this mean i should read the dewd, since people I admire are familiar with him?
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I certainly think Badiou's worth it.
His philosophical works require and reward patience. It's tough however to get a robust sense of his thought via Anglo sphere Google search.
In my opinion, there are far too many Internet available critiques posted by gun (or meme) slinging philosophy students. Mostly the very young who're sure the emperor has no clothes and are looking to make their bones by taking down a prominent figure. (Zizek faces this problem too. There are many, many attack articles, blog posts, etc based almost entirely on sound bites, film excerpts and pop press essays. Less common are sustained criticisms dissecting, at length, the content of Zizek's extended works).
Of course, no one's above critique; Badiou's as susceptible to criticism as anyone else.
Regarding Badiou's accessible political work, I'll mention again _The Meaning of Sarkozy_.
Richard Seymour reviewed it here:
<http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/02/badiou-on-le-petit-nicolas.html>
You can order it here:
<http://www.versobooks.com/books/ab/b-titles/badiou_a_sarkozy.shtml>
This is a very useful book, a Swiss army knife for understanding the political impact of neoliberalism. Its message is as relevant to US concerns as those of the French left.
.d.