The CenturyEverywhere, the twentieth century has been judged and condemned: the century of totalitarian terror, of utopian and criminal ideologies, of empty illusions, of genocides, of false avant-gardes, of democratic realism everywhere replaced by abstraction. It is not Badiou's wish to plead for an accused that is perfectly capable of defending itself without the authors aid. Nor does he seek to proclaim, like Frantz, the hero of Sartre's Prisoners of Altona, 'I have taken the century on my shoulders and I have said: I will answer for it!' The Century simply aims to examine what this accursed century, from within its own unfolding, said that it was. Badiou's proposal is to reopen the dossier on the century - not from the angle of those wise and sated judges we too often claim to be, but from the standpoint of the century itself. |
Contents
The beast | |
The unreconciled | |
A new world Yes but when? | |
The passion for the real and the montage of semblance | |
One divides into | |
Sex in crisis | |
Anabasis | |
Seven variations | |
Cruelties | |
Avantgardes | |
The infinite | |
The joint disappearances of Man and | |
The strategic brain of man directing | |
Remarks on the translation | |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute aesthetic already Álvaro de Campos anabasis André Breton anti-dialectical artistic avant-garde Beckett become beginning Brecht Breton Campos Celan century's cinema communist concept constitutes construction creative cruelty Cultural Revolution culture decision declares destruction dialectic emancipation epic essence existence fascism figure finitude force formal formula Foucault fraternity French Freud Hegel History human idea ideology immanent infinite inhuman invention Jünger Kraus Lacan language lessons Mallarmé Mandelstam Manifesto Maoism means mise en scène movement Nazi Nazism Nietzsche nihilism nineteenth novelty objective Party passion Paul Celan Pessoa Pétainism philosophy poem poet poetic poetry political possible precisely present problem programme psychoanalysis pure question radical representation revolution revolutionary romanticism Saint-John Perse Sartre Schmitt's semblance sense sexual singularity stake Stalin subjectivation theatre theme things thought translated truth twentieth century violence W. S. Merwin word