Five Lessons on Wagner

For over a century, Richard Wagner’s music has been the subject of intensedebate 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 adetailed reading of the critical responses to the composer’s work, whichinclude Adorno’s writings on the composer and Wagner’s recuperationby Nazism as well as more recent readings by Philippe Lacoue-Labartheand others. Slavoj Žižek provides an afterword, and both philosophersmake a passionate case for re-examining the relevance of Wagner to thecontemporary world.