Badiou, Zizek, and Political Transformations

Alain Badiou and Slavoj A iA ek 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, A iA ek, and Political Transformations examines Badiouian and A iA ekian 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 A iA ek'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 A iA ek 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, A iA ek, and Political Transformations will surely join Johnston's A iA ek's Ontology as an instant classic in its field.