UNC Asheville to Host Talk by Celebrated French Philosopher Alain Badiou

UNC Asheville’s Philosophy Department will host a talk on “Discipline: Philosophy and Radical Political Organization” by influential French philosopher Alain Badiou at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, April 19, in UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union Mount Mitchell Room. Badiou is one of the premier founders of the “philosophy of the event,” the effort to understand the potential for profound, transformative innovation in any situation. In his talk, Badiou will explain the connections between theoretical philosophy and politics and will discuss various ideas on how radical political groups can organize themselves most effectively to create change. The talk is free and open to the public.

Badiou is a leading member of many radical political groups, and is one of the founders of the political movement L’Organisation Politique, which strives to create change without allegiance to a specific party. This “politics without party” approach has had a hand in direct intervention on a wide range of issues including immigration, labor and housing.

Badiou is professor of philosophy at France’s Ecole Normale Superieure, and teaches seminars on topics ranging from the great “anti-philosophers” to the major conceptual innovations of the 20th century. Trained as a mathematician and influenced by Plato, Hegel, Lacan and Deleuze, Badiou is an outspoken critic of both analytic and continental schools of thought. He is the author of several successful novels and plays in addition to more than a dozen philosophical works.

For more information, call Duane Davis, UNC Asheville associate professor of philosophy, at 828/251-6367.

Media Contacts:

• Dr. Duane Davis, UNC Asheville Associate Professor of Philosophy, 828/251-6367       

• Jill Yarnall, UNC Asheville Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526