Understanding Badiou, Understanding Modernism

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In his philosophical project, aesthetic orientation and political leanings, Alain Badiou is a product of, and a leading advocate for, European modernism.

From the milieu of May 1968 to the contemporary postmodern ethos, Badiou returns, time and again, to avant-garde modernist texts aesthetic, political, philosophical and scientific as inspiration for his response to present situations. Drawing upon disciplines as varied as architecture, cinema, theatre, music, history, mathematics, poetry and philosophy, Understanding Badiou, Understanding Modernism shows how Badious contribution to philosophy must be understood within the context of his decades-long conversation with modernist thinking.

As with other volumes in the series, Understanding Badiou, Understanding Modernism follows a three part structure. The first section explores Badious readings of aesthetic, political and scientific modernities; both introducing his system and pointing to how Badiou offers manifold readings of modernism. The middle portion of the book connects Badious thought with the various strands of aesthetic, philosophical, amorous and political modernisms in relation to which it can be extended. The final section is a glossary of key concepts and categories that Badiou uses in his interface with modernism.

Reviews

Should Alain Badiouone of the most controversial thinkers alive who is working for the contemporary renewal of Platonismalso be able to guide us through modernism The essays in the present collection contend so and they do this with force, demonstrating how we can think mathematics, love, art and even politics anew: from the perspective of our (modern) Plato. * Frank Ruda, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy, University of Dundee, UK *
A vigorous and varied collection of essays that examine Badious relationship to modernisms in art, mathematics, music, and literature, and the eternal modernity of his thinking. The conditions of Badious philosophy derive from his accounts of particular works of truth produced in specific historical situations which they nevertheless transcend, and by tracing the complexity and the contradictions that are inherent to this dialectic, these essays generate both nuanced interpretations and powerful theorizations. * Kenneth Reinhard, Research Professor of Comparative Literature and English, University of California, Los Angeles, USA *
The question of Alain Badious modernism has haunted his critical reception. Whether according praise or blame this reception has more often that not sought simply to situate Badiou in its own terms, failing thereby to render an immanent account of his conditional, modernist allegiances.Thankfully, as the combined contributions to this expertly edited volume show, Badious philosophy of true change both explodes and renders void any such self-serving placement, demonstrating in turn how the philosopher establishes himself generically within a second-modernity.' * A. J. Bartlett, Lecturer, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia, and author of Badiou and Plato: An Education by Truths (2011) *

Author Bio

Arka Chattopadhyay is Assistant Professor of Literary Studies and Philosophy, Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Gandhinagar, India. He is the author of Beckett, Lacan and the Mathematical Writing of the Real (Bloomsbury 2019) and co-editor of Nabarun Bhattacharya: Aesthetics and Politics in a World after Ethics (Bloomsbury 2020).

Arthur Rose is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, UK. He is the author of Literary Cynics: Borges, Beckett, Coetzee (Bloomsbury 2017) and co-editor of Theories of History (Bloomsbury 2018).