Overview

This is the first wide-ranging analysis of Alain Badiou’s use, development and transformation of the concept of history. Despite the wealth of perspectives now available on how social and cultural practices take shape, historicism still appears to be the most dominant. The Militant Historian examines this primacy and reveals how Badiou’s work offers a radical riposte. Exploring key texts in Badiou’s oeuvre and how his philosophical ideas disrupt dominant conceptions of history and the role of the historian, Kerry William Purcell addresses how these ideas could transform our approaches to the historical and what it means to ‘do history’ as a meaningful endeavour. Adopting a chronological approach to Badiou’s work, each chapter explores specific conceptual developments in his writing and how they lend themselves to a reconsideration of the subject who speaks history. From these new and disruptive modes of doing emerges the figure of the militant historian – a role with the potential to impact how we practice history outside the narrow strictures of academic life.

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9781350381056

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Metaphysical Hermeneutics is one of the most noteworthy books on philosophical hermeneutics to appear in recent years. Professor Grondin expertly navigates through the history of both hermeneutics and metaphysics, while his analysis of ‘sense’ is especially original and important. * Paul Fairfield, Professor of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Canada * Grondin’s project of metaphysical hermeneutics is a bold attempt to bring the modern question of understanding into dialogue with the classic question of being. It is a timely interrogation of the meaning of life—by showing how we make sense of sense. How we interpret our sensing of the things themselves. A vital and compelling argument. * Richard Kearney, Professor of Philosophy, Boston College, USA *

Author Information

Kerry William Purcell is a Senior Lecturer in Design History at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. He specialises in visual cultural theory, and has previously written on the philosophy of history and key figures in the history of visual culture.

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