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

About the Author
Adrian Johnston is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque, USA, and an assistant teaching analyst at the Emory Psychoanalytic Institute in Atlanta, USA. He is author, most recently, of Zizek Ontology: A Transcendental Materialist Theory of Subjectivity (2008), also from Northwestern University Press.


Book Information
ISBN 9780810125704
Author Adrian Johnston
Format Paperback
Page Count 312
Imprint Northwestern University Press
Publisher Northwestern University Press
Weight(grams) 487g