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Alain Badiou: The Event Of Becoming A Political Subject, Antonio Calcagno

Antonio Calcagno

One of the more poignant claims Badiou makes is that the subject develops an understanding of itself as a political subject only by executing decisive political actions or making decisive political interventions. In this article I will argue that in order to have a fuller philosophical conception of political subjectivity, and therefore political agency, one must also hold that, first, political interventions do not necessarily lead to a definition or a further way of referring to and understanding the subject. In fact, political events and interventions may consciously aim at and result in the de-politicizing, de-subjectivating or dehumanizing of the …

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Foucault And Derrida: The Question Of Empowering And Disempowering The Author, Antonio Calcagno

Antonio Calcagno

This article focuses on Michel Foucault’s concepts of authorship and power. Jacques Derrida has often been accused of being more of a literary author than a philosopher or political theorist. Richard Rorty complains that Derrida’s views on politics are not pragmatic enough; he sees Derrida’s later work, including his political work, more as a “private self-fashioning” than concrete political thinking aimed at devising short-term solutions to problems here and now. Employing Foucault’s work around authorship and the origins of power, I show that Derrida is indeed fashioning himself. This self-fashioning is not merely private or fanciful. Rather, I argue that …

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