Download or read book Five Lessons on Wagner written by Alain Badiou and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a century, Richard Wagner's music has been the subject of intense debate among philosophers, many of whom have attacked its ideological-some say racist and reactionary-underpinnings. In this major new work, Alain Badiou, radical philosopher and keen Wagner enthusiast, offers a detailed reading of the critical responses to the composer's work, which include Adorno's writings on the composer and Wagner's recuperation by Nazism as well as more recent readings by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and others. Slavoj Zizek provides an afterword, and both philosophers make a passionate case for re-examining the relevance of Wagner to the contemporary world.