December 8, 2015 a lecture on Identity and Universality by Alain Badiou in light of contemporary tragic events in Paris and elsewhere.

December 8, 2015: Many forms of violence in the contemporary world are concerned with either the violent confrontation of different collective identities, or the exasperated resistance of certain of these identities against that which is presented as having a universal value. The central question in these cases is this: what is the historical and conceptual relationship between the feeling of belonging to an identity and the construction of a universal value?

Alain Badiou teaches philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure and the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris, and was a founder of the faculty of Philosophy of the Université de Paris VIII. A politically engaged philosopher, his major philosophical works include Theory of the Subject, Being and Event, Manifesto for Philosophy, and Gilles Deleuze. He has also written several novels, plays and political essays.

Co-sponsored by the Heyman Center for the Humanities, Maison Francaise, Center for Contemporary Critical Thought, and Film and Media Studies.