Transformation in Contemporary French Philosophy

Emma Ingala is Associate Professor in the Department of Logic and Theoretical Philosophy at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. She specializes in post-structuralist thought, political anthropology, feminism, and psychoanalysis. Her recent publications include co-editing the volumes Philosophy across Borders (Routledge, 2025), Historical Traces and Future Pathways of Poststructuralism: Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics (Routledge, 2021), The Meanings of Violence: From Critical Theory to Biopolitics (Routledge, 2019) and Subjectivity and the Political: Contemporary Perspectives (Routledge, 2018). She has also been an invited Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the University of California, Berkeley, USA. Cillian Ó Fathaigh is Assistant Professor and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow in Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University, Poland. Prior to that, he was a Lecturer at King’s College London and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He previously completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, where he was a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Scholar. He currently works at the intersection of political philosophy, European philosophy, and the philosophy of the digital, with a particular focus on the concept of institutions. His work has been published in prestigious international journals, including Philosophy and Social Criticism; Journal of Medicine and Philosophy; Angelaki; Paragraph; and Derrida Today. He is co-editor of Subjective Agency and Poststructuralism (Routledge, 2025—with Gavin Rae); and Derrida’s Politics of Friendship: Amity and Enmity (Edinburgh University Press, 2022—with Luke Collison and Georgios Tsagdis). Gavin Rae is Associate Professor (accredited to Professor) in the Department of Logic and Theoretical Philosophy at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. His research interests lie in nineteenth and twentieth century European philosophy, where he works at the intersection of socio-political philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, ontology, and ethics. Besides over sixty published articles and book chapters, he is the author of eight monographs, the most recent of which are The Politics of Reason: A Postfoundational Approach (Edinburgh University Press, 2026), Questioning Sexuality: From Psychoanalysis to Gender Theory and Beyond (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), and Poststructuralist Agency: The Subject in Twentieth Century Theory (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). He has also co-edited six volumes, the most recent of which are Subjective Agency and Poststructuralism (Routledge, 2025—with Cillian Ó Fathaigh), Philosophy across Borders (Routledge, 2025—with Emma Ingala), and Historical Traces and Future Pathways of Poststructuralism: Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics (Routledge, 2021—with Emma Ingala).

This collective contribution to work on French philosophy is both nicely heterogeneous and fully coherent. Its featured subjects are a striking departure from the usual suspects, while building on the state of the art. Its twelve chapters offer a fresh look at existing problematics and distinctive approaches to new material. It will be essential reading for anyone working on recent and contemporary French thought, writ large.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Problem of TransformationEmma Ingala, Cillian Ó Fathaigh, and Gavin Rae PART I: METAPHYSICS, PHENOMENOLOGY, AND POSTCOLONIAL THEORY 1. Bergson and the Nature of Change: Adventures Across the Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science of TransformationCraig Lundy2. Transformation of the Self in Sartre: Imaginary and HistoryMarieke Mueller3. Simone de Beauvoir: On Transformation through AmbiguitySara Cohen Shabot4. Merleau-Ponty and Historical Transformation: The Dialectics of Situation and ActionJérôme Melançon5. Beyond Violence: Milieu and Social Transformation in Fanon’s Psychiatric WritingsCillian Ó FathaighPART II: EVENT, AGENCY, AND DIFFERENCE6. “The Great Pyramid is an Event”: Thinking Creativity and Transformation with Deleuze and WhiteheadHannah Richter7. Foucault’s Account of the Will: Making Sense of Historical TransformationsTuomo Tiisala8. The Transformative Power of Derrida’s DifféranceNicole J. Anderson9. Transforming the Sound of Revolt: Kristeva, Moten, and Phonic MaterialitySid HansenPART III: NARRATION, INFORMATION, AND ONTOLOGY 10. The Transformative Potential of Ricoeur’s Narrative SelfKatrina Mitcheson11. Information as Transformation: Ruyer, Simondon, SerresAshley Woodward12. From Magma to Plasticity: Transformation in Castoriadis and MalabouGavin RaeNotes on ContributorsIndex