Neo-classic: Alain Badiou’s Being and Event

Neo-classic Alain Badiou’s Being and Event Peter osborne If anyone was in doubt about the continuing grip of French philosophy on the theoretical imagination of the anglophone humanities, the reception of the writings of Alain Badiou must surely have put paid to such reservations. The translation of his magnum opus, Being and Event, in spring […]

The promise of justice

The promise of justice Howard caygill Breaking the promise of justice is an act peculiarly repugnant to reason. It implies a double betrayal: not only of the promised justice but also of the justice of the promise. Nevertheless, how is it possible to do justice to the promise of justice? Especially when this very promise […]

Grounding Deleuze

Grounding Deleuze Christian kerslake Last year an early series of lectures by the 32-year-old Gilles Deleuze surfaced on Richard Pinhas’s internet archive of Deleuze’s seminars, Les Cours de Gilles Deleuze.* The 42-page document is entitled Qu’est-ce que fonder?, which I shall translate as What is Grounding?, for reasons explained in a moment. It consists of […]

After life: De anima and unhuman politics

After life De anima and unhuman politics Eugene thacker Since the 1960s, the NASA programme has supported research into the exploration of life on other planets. Currently, their astrobiology programme involves multiple institutions and research programmes, including the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Its mission statement defines astrobiology as ‘the study of the origins, evolution, distribution, and […]

Theory: (Madness of)

Dossier: From Structure to Rhizome: Transdisciplinarity in French Thought (2)

Forty years or so after it initially rose as a rather new name for a rather new thing, theory is still an obtruse signifier, troubling and floating, requiring we go back to basics. Theory as we most often understand it today is the name given by the English-speaking intellectual community to a certain type of […]

Levinas’s prison notebooks

In June 1940 the French 10th Army was surrounded by invading German forces at Rennes. Among those captured was Emmanuel Levinas, mobilized as an officer/interpreter in 1939 and now imprisoned as an enemy combatant under the terms of the Geneva Conventions. Levinas passed five years in captivity, first at Frontstalags in Rennes and Laval, then […]

Andeanizing philosophy: Rodolfo Kusch and indigenous thought

Andeanizing philosophy Rodolfo Kusch and indigenous thought Philip derbyshire The belated English translation of Rodolfo Kusch’s Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América (originally published in Spanish in 1970)* introduces this Argentine author to an English-speaking audience for the first time. What makes his work interesting is that it takes indigenous thinking seriously as philosophy – […]