Alain Badiou
Five Lessons on Wagner.
London: Verso, 2010. Translation by Susan Spitzer of "Cinq leçons sur le 'cas' Wagner" (Éditions Nous, 2010), with afterword by Slavoj Zizek. 9781844674565 224 pages.
Hardcover volume, measuring approximately 5.75" x 9", is bound in black cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spine. Book is new, still in shrinkwrap.
"For over a century, Richard Wagner’s music has been the subject of intense debate among philosophers, many of whom have attacked its ideological—some say racist and reactionary—underpinnings. In this major new work, Alain Badiou, radical philosopher and keen Wagner enthusiast, offers a detailed reading of the critical responses to the composer’s work, which include Adorno’s writings on the composer and Wagner’s recuperation by Nazism as well as more recent readings by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and others. Slavoj Zizek provides an afterword, and both philosophers make a passionate case for re-examining the relevance of Wagner to the contemporary world."