Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Event/ 1916
Those of you who are familiar with Badiou's notion of the 'event' and with the Easter 1916 rising in Ireland, I would be interested to hear whether you think that the rising constituted an 'event' in Badiou's sense. I tend to think that it did and will be posting something on this shortly. In the meantime, you'll see that I've opened the comments box. In the absence of any comments or emails I shall of course post something anyhow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
If I understand Badiou correctly, then I would say that Easter
1916 is a good example of what he *doesn't* mean by "an event".
In retrospect, if not at the time, the Rising seems well-grounded
in what had gone before, a set of disparate movements over decades
united by the common theme of anti-Englishness/Britishness (even if
that were sometimes only implicit): the Land War, the Irish-Ireland
movement, Gaelic games, the language movement, and so on. It is
a culmination of them, not a break from them.
To put it another way, Badiou's event, as I understand it,
is anti-dialectical; whereas Easter 1916 is a good example of
dialectical development at the point when evolution passes over
into revolution.
(I'm not really posting anonymously: 'tis me:
The Shamrockshire Eagle)
Post a Comment