In recent years the work of Sylvain Lazarus has begun to gain more attention. Read initially because of his intellectual and political relationship with Alain Badiou, there has recently been a turn to understanding Lazarus on his own terms. The goal of this course is simple: we are going to read Lazarus’ 1996 text Anthropology of the Name. After an introductory first week, we will read a chapter a week.
Anthropology of the Name is Lazarus’ major theoretical statement. Built on two decades of thinking through the crisis of Marxism and his work with L’Organisation Politique, Lazarus codifies an account of politics that centers people’s thought. The result is a radical statement on the relationship between Marxism, theory, and emancipation. For if politics is precisely the demonstration of people’s thought, serious questions are now posed about the traditional relationship of theory and emancipation. The unfolding tension asks us, then, what becomes of theory? Lazarus articulates a unique and powerful vision of politics. This vision is articulated through a singular conceptual apparatus. For Lazarus politics occurs in “interiority”, proceeding via modes that are sequential and rare. As a class we will contemplate the troubling implications Lazarus’ intervention has for those who believe that critical theory and emancipation belong together.
No prior knowledge of Lazarus, theory or Badiou is required or necessary. All readings, including secondary material, will be provided.
Course Schedule
Session 1: An Introduction to Sylvain Lazarus
The first session introduces Lazarus and provides relevant background. After giving an overview of his life and work, I move on to the relevant historical details. We will focus on May 68’, The Crisis of Marxism and Lazarus’ involvement with UCFML and L'Organisation Politique. I will also provide an overview of Lazarus’ key terminology, all of which will be explicated in the proceeding sessions.
Readings:
- Can Politics be Thought in Interiority? – Sylvain Lazarus (trans.Tyler Harper), Cosmos and History (May 2016), pp.107-130
- Socialist Think – Asad Haider, Viewpoint Magazine (September 2018)
Session 2: What is an Anthropology of the Name?
In this session we begin the exposition of Lazarus and his Anthropology of the Name proper. The introduction will be covered by a discussion focused on ‘what is an anthropology of the name?’ We will then move on to the first chapter, “The Distance Travelled and Categories.” The first chapter is divided into two parts. The first part concerns what Lazarus calls ‘The Caesura of May ‘68’. Across ten sub sections he introduces several categories crucial to his thinking. The argument in this first part is an abstract account of the French Communist Party’s declining role in politics (as Lazarus understands it) and the rise of Mitterandism. The second section is an exposition of the important role Lenin plays for Lazarus and where Lazarus develops his theory of modes. The focus will be on Lazarus interpretation of Lenin, bringing together a few of his comments from elsewhere. We will also highlight a few other moments in this chapter including Lazarus’ discussion of the “method of saturation” and his discussion of Karl Marx.
Readings:
- Introduction (pp.1-9) and Chapter 1: The Distance Travelled and Categories (pp.10-47), Sylvain Lazarus, Anthropology of the Name
Session 3: The Two Statements
In this session the reading is short, but there is much ground to cover. We will look at what Lazarus calls the “Two Statements”: 1) “People Think” and 2) “Thought is a Relation of the Real”. The first statement does not require much explication, but the second will require a detour through Lazarus’ discussions of rationalism and scientism, including a discussion of his use of Claude Levi-Strauss and Emile Durkheim. When will then return to discussing statement 2. There are then four more concepts that we will need to cover in this chapter: intellectuality and thinkability and reiteration and gaps. This will bring us to terms with the core of Lazarus’ thought, the two statements are fundamental.
Reading:
- Chapter 2: The Two Statements (pp.48-68), Sylvain Lazarus, Anthropology of the Name
Session 4: Classism and the Proper Names
In this session we will discuss Lazarus’ critical engagement with several other thinkers, gaining a better sense of his intellectual influences. The lecture focuses on five things.
1) Lazarus’ critique of Marxism-Leninism and the "Dialectic of the objective-subjective”.
2) The role Michel Foucault’s concept of episteme plays in Lazarus’ conception of “singularity”
3) Lazarus polemic against the concept of totality
4) the role Althusser’s concept of overdetermination plays for Lazarus
5) The relationship between History and the State.
I will provide background on the major thinkers covered in this chapter (Marx, Foucault, Althusser, Durkheim) and explicate their concepts which Lazarus draws on but does not always discuss in detail.
Reading:
- Chapter 3: Thinking After Classism (pp.69-114), Sylvain Lazarus, Anthropology of the Name
Session 5: Unnamable Names and Antihistoricism
This session will cover the penultimate and concluding chapter of Anthropology of the Name. The main 4 points to be covered are:
- Lazarus’ critique of Marc Bloch. This will require a detailed exposition of Bloch.
- Lazarus’ argument for the abolition of time.
- Lazarus’ discussion of Moses Finely and ‘antihistorcist historicism’
- the figure of the worker and the worker factory.
We will conclude with a summary and offer a critical assessment of Lazarus’ intervention, connecting back to issues outlined at the beginning of the course, asking ourselves if Lazarus’ subjectivist egalitarianism can be maintained.
Readings:
- Chapter 4: Unanmeable Names (pp.115-166) and Chapter 5: Time to Conclude (pp.167-175), Sylvain Lazarus, Anthropology of the Name