Synopses & Reviews
Concept and Form is a two-volume monument to the work of the philosophy journal the
Cahiers pour l’Analyse (1966–69), the most ambitious and radical collective project to emerge from French structuralism. Inspired by their teachers Louis Althusser and Jacques Lacan, the editors of the
Cahiers sought to sever philosophy from the interpretation of given meanings or experiences, focusing instead on the mechanisms that structure specific configurations of discourse, from the psychological and ideological to the literary, scientific, and political. Adequate analysis of the operations at work in these configurations, they argue, helps prepare the way for their revolutionary transformation.
The first volume comprises English translations of some of the most important theoretical texts published in the journal, written by thinkers who would soon be counted among the most inventive and influential of their generation. The second volume collects newly commissioned essays on the journal, together with recent interviews with people who were either members of its editorial board or associated with its broader theoretical project.
Contributors include Alain Badiou, Étienne Balibar, Edward Baring, Jacques Bouveresse, Yves Duroux, Alain Grosrichard, Peter Hallward, Adrian Johnston, Serge Leclaire, Patrice Maniglier, Tracy McNulty, Jacques-Alain Miller, Jean-Claude Milner, Knox Peden, Jacques Rancière, François Regnault, and Slavoj Žižek.
Synopsis
First systematic presentation and assessment of the groundbreaking journal Cahiers pour l’Analyse.
Synopsis
Edited by a small group of students—including Alain Badiou, Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault—at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris, the
Cahiers pour l’Analyse appeared in ten volumes between 1966 to 1969. The journal was conceived as a contribution to a philosophy based on the primacy of concepts and the rigor of logic and formalization, as opposed to lived experience or the interpretation of meaning. The
Cahiers published landmark texts by the most influential thinkers of the day, including Derrida, Foucault, Irigaray, and Lacan, and were soon recognized as one of the most significant and innovative philosophical projects of the time.
The two volumes of Concept and Form offer the first systematic presentation and assessment of the Cahiers legacy in any language. The first volume translates a selection of original Cahiers texts; the second is a collection of newly commissioned essays on the journal and substantial interviews with members of the editorial board.
Synopsis
Edited by a small group of students—including Alain Badiou, Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault—at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris, the
Cahiers pour l’Analyse appeared in ten volumes between 1966 to 1969. The journal was conceived as a contribution to a philosophy based on the primacy of concepts and the rigor of logic and formalization, as opposed to lived experience or the interpretation of meaning. The
Cahiers published landmark texts by the most influential thinkers of the day, including Derrida, Foucault, Irigaray, and Lacan, and were soon recognized as one of the most significant and innovative philosophical projects of the time.
The two volumes of Concept and Form offer the first systematic presentation and assessment of the Cahiers legacy in any language. The first volume translates a selection of original Cahiers texts; the second is a collection of newly commissioned essays on the journal and substantial interviews with members of the editorial board.
About the Author
Peter Hallward teaches at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, London, and is the author of books on Badiou and Deleuze.Knox Peden is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for the History of European Discourses at the University of Queensland.Alain Badiou teaches philosophy at the École normale supérieure and the Collège international de philosophie in Paris. In addition to several novels, plays and political essays, he has published a number of major philosophical works, including Theory of the Subject, Being and Event, Manifesto for Philosophy, and Gilles Deleuze. His recent books include The Meaning of Sarkozy, Ethics, Metapolitics, Polemics, The Communist Hypothesis, Five Lessons on Wagner, and Wittgenstein's Anti-Philosophy.Étienne Balibar is a French Marxist philosopher and the most celebrated student of Louis Althusser. He is also one of the leading exponents of French Marxist philosophy and the author of Spinoza and Politics, The Philosophy of Marx and co-author of Race, Nation and Class and Reading Capital.Jacques-Alain Miller is Director of the Department of Psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII and editor of Lacan's Seminars.Jacques Rancière is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris-VIII. His books include The Politics of Aesthetics, On the Shores of Politics, Short Voyages to the Land of the People, The Nights of Labor, Staging the People, and The Emancipated Spectator.Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a Professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, In Defense of Lost Causes, four volumes of the Essential Žižek, and many more.