Insolubilia: New Work in Contemporary Philosophy – serie

From the post-War writings of Sartre and Blanchot to the post-structuralism of Jacques Derrida and Julia Kristeva, French philosophers have consistently debated the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé, almost as a rite of passage. Alain Badiou, Jean-Claude Milner and Jacques Rancière — three of the most important philosophers alive today — are no exception, having written extensively about the poet since the 1960’s and 70’s up until today. This book contains a series of interviews with these three figures on Mallarmé, as well as an extended introduction that places their thought on literature into dialogue. Speaking about their personal and philosophical relationships with each other, on methods of reading, on poetry and politics, and poetry and mathematics, each philosopher reflects on their life-long engagement with Mallarmé, as well as on the different, often incommensurable, images of the poet their philosophies have generated. As Rancière, Milner and Badiou point to the past importance and future directions Mallarmé gives to thought, these interviews lend credence to Barthes’ remark that “all we can do is repeat Mallarmé – and it is good that we do so”.

From the post-War writings of Sartre and Blanchot to the post-structuralism of Jacques Derrida and Julia Kristeva, French philosophers have consistently debated the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé, almost as a rite of passage. Alain Badiou, Jean-Claude Milner and Jacques Rancière — three of the most important philosophers alive today — are no exception, having written extensively about the poet since the 1960’s and 70’s up until today. This book contains a series of interviews with these three figures on Mallarmé, as well as an extended introduction that places their thought on literature into dialogue. Speaking about their personal and philosophical relationships with each other, on methods of reading, on poetry and politics, and poetry and mathematics, each philosopher reflects on their life-long engagement with Mallarmé, as well as on the different, often incommensurable, images of the poet their philosophies have generated. As Rancière, Milner and Badiou point to the past importance and future directions Mallarmé gives to thought, these interviews lend credence to Barthes’ remark that “all we can do is repeat Mallarmé – and it is good that we do so”.

This book argues that a renewed consideration of artistic value should both critique contemporary bureaucratic misunderstandings of what art is and address the complexities and questions of contemporary philosophers in new and provocative ways. Writer and poet Ali Alizadeh focusses on the artistic theories of the key Western philosopher of value, Karl Marx. He explores Marx’s thoughts on art and literature and provides a new account of his revolutionary view of why we make art and how we understand art’s value.By returning to Marx’s writings, from his juvenile poetry and earliest journalism to his final publications, Alizadeh proposes a theory which not only challenges many tenets of contemporary Marxist literary or cultural theory, but one which also presents us with a profound, coherent and stimulating theory of art that defines, values and demonstrates artistic practice. By mapping Marx’s intellectual development from the ideals of a young Hegelian to the polemics of a seasoned internationalist communist he shows that Marx never lost sight of art as a key aspect of human activity.