Being & Event

Being & Event

Discover the radical potential and technical virtuosity of philosopher Alain Badiou's major treatise Being and Event (1988). Co-hosts Andrew Culp and Alexander R. Galloway guide the listener through each section of the book, pairing each episode with a special guest interview. Over nine episodes, they follow Badiou as he explores the nature of being, the function of the state, when and how events arise, and the political potential of subjects in their relation to truth.

Episodes

May 15, 2023 121 mins

Covering Part 8 of Alain Badiou’s Being and Event on “Theory of the Subject,” Alex and Andrew discuss the theory of subject and the event, and Badiou’s wider work.

Guest Andrei Rodin contextualizes Badiou’s project through its relation to the wider philosophy of mathematics. Rodin is a mathematician and philosopher with affiliations in France, including the University of Lorraine and the University Paris-Cité, and in Russia at the ...

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Covering Part 7 of Alain Badiou’s Being and Event on “Forcing the Generic,” Alex and Andrew discuss the four truth procedures as a way to force the generic into existence.

Guest Madhavi Menon presents a queer universalist approach through indifference to difference. Menon is Professor of English at Ashoka University in India. She is the author of five books, including Indifference to Difference: On Queer Universalism published by U...

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Covering Part 6 of Alain Badiou’s Being and Event on “The Impasse of Ontology,” Alex and Andrew discuss Badiou’s critique of the discernible and constructible as foreclosures of the event.

Guest Calvin Warren thinks the catastrophe through the post-metaphysics of anti-math and the problem of the one. Warren is a professor of African American Studies at Emory University. His research interests include Continental Philosophy (particu...

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Covering Part 5 of Alain Badiou’s Being and Event on “Breaking the Law,” Alex and Andrew discuss intervention and fidelity through subtraction and deduction.

Guest Anna Kornbluh discusses mathematical formalism, the spontaneity of vitalism, and Marxist humanism. Kornbluh is a Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is author, most recently, of The Order of Forms: Realism, Formalism, and Social Space (2019...

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Covering Part 4 of Alain Badiou’s Being and Event, described through the expression “On the Edge of the Void,” Alex and Andrew cover the event, history, and the contradictory hypotheses of the ultra-one (the necessity of the event) and the being of non-being (the necessity of the decision).

Guest Elisabeth Paquette identifies limits to universality from Badiou’s Marxist legacy and suggests Afro-Caribbean approaches to emancipation ...

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Covering Part 3 of Alain Badiou’s Being and Event on “Nature & Infinity,” Alex and Andrew complete the "arithmetic, natural story" that constitutes Badiou’s presentation of being within the book so far.

Guest Sarah Pourciau explores the history and philosophy of set theory, while also scrutinizing the conclusions Badiou tries to draw from it. Pourciau is a professor of German Studies at Duke University. Her expertise ...

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Continuing with Part 2 of Alain Badiou’s Being and Event on the topic of “Badiou vs. Deleuze,” Alex and Andrew compare the metaphysics of the two French philosophers Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze through ontologies of multiplicity, mathematics, identity, and the one.


Guests David Maruzzella and Gil Morejón discuss the mid-century intellectual climate of France, the history of truth, Spinozism, and philosophies of the subject...

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Covering Part 2 of Alain Badiou’s Being and Event on “Belonging, Inclusion, and the State,” Alex and Andrew discuss belonging, inclusion, and the state through Badiou’s set-theoretical philosophy of the situation.

Guest Nick Nesbitt outlines an anti-colonial politics of the revolutionary event through an encounter between Caribbean thinkers and Badiou. Nesbitt is Professor of French and Italian at Princeton University and author or...

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Covering Part 1 of Alain Badiou’s Being and Event on the topic of “Being,” Alex and Andrew introduce some foundational concepts and address Badiou’s relation to other philosophers.

Guest Knox Peden outlines where Badiou fits within the intellectual history of French philosophy, Marxism, and science. Peden is author of Spinoza Contra Phenomenology: French Rationalism from Cavaillès to Deleuze (published in 2014). Knox has also worke...

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March 1, 2023 4 mins

Join Andrew Culp and Alexander R. Galloway for a deep dive into Alain Badiou's 1988 book Being and Event. Pairing close readings of the text with special guests, it promises to enlighten both those new to Badiou as well as those already familiar with his work. Episodes released weekly through Spring 2023.

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