Jason Barker
Since completing my doctorate at Cardiff University in 2003 I have been
writing about the concept of revolution, particularly in relation to
Marxist-Leninist debates on the State. The thrust of my argument, which is
presented in an essay due to appear this year in the collection Alain
Badiou : de l'ontologie à la politique (l'Harmattan), is that the
concept of State is no longer a counterpoint of revolutionary political
practice, and that a new concept of "revolution" can only emerge through the
"depersonification of the State", or "disfigurement of the Master". However,
this in turn raises questions about the topological and topographical
placement of revolution in any would-be ontology. I am currently preparing
material for a book on post-68 politics in between teaching post-war French
thought from Sartre to Badiou at London College of Communication. My English
translation of Badiou's Metapolitics is due to be published by Verso
in autumn 2005.