In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary

Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek together have emerged as two of Europe’s most significant living philosophers. In a shared spirit of resistance to global capitalism, both are committed to bringing philosophical reflection to bear upon present-day political circumstances. These thinkers are especially interested in asking what consequences the supposed twentieth-century demise of communism entails for leftist political theory in the early twenty-first century.

Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations examines Badiouian and Žižekian depictions of change, particularly as deployed at the intersection of philosophy and politics. The book details the origins of Badiou’s concept of the event and Žižek’s concept of the act as related theoretical visions of revolutionary happenings, delineating a number of difficulties arising from these similar concepts. Johnston finds that Badiou and Žižek tend to favor models of transformation that risk discouraging in advance precisely the efforts at changing the world of today that these uncompromising leftists so ardently desire. Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations will surely join Johnston’s Žižek’s Ontology as an instant classic in its field.


Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Contents
  2. p. xi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Preface: “Be Reasonable: Demand the Impossible!”—The Contemporary Importance of Badiou and Žižek
  2. pp. xiii-xxvi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. xxv-xxvi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Introduction: The Badiouian- Žižekian Politburo—Political Interventions in the Shadow of Lacan
  2. pp. xxvii-xxxii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Part 1. Alain Badiou: From Event to Act
  1. 1. The Quick and the Dead: Badiou and the Split Speeds of Transformation
  2. pp. 5-36
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 2. One Must Have Confidence That the Other Does Not Exist: Select Preconditions for Events and Acts in Contemporary Circumstances
  2. pp. 37-81
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Part 2. Slavoj Žižek: From Act to Event
  1. 3. The Cynic’s Fetish: Žižek and the Dynamics of Belief
  2. pp. 85-126
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 4. From the Spectacular Act to the Vanishing Act: The Politics of Lacanian Theory
  2. pp. 127-160
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Appendix A: “Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom!”: Some Brief Remarks on and Responses to Žižek’s “Badiou: Notes from an Ongoing Debate”
  2. pp. 161-173
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Appendix B: Slavoj Žižek, “An Answer to Two Questions”
  2. pp. 174-230
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Notes
  2. pp. 231-252
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Works Cited
  2. pp. 253-268
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 269-277
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.