Thinking the Event: Badiou's Philosophy of the Event and the Example of the Paris Commune

The problem of theorising the ‘event’ as a moment of major time–space transformation has become a focus of enquiry in philosophy, history, and the social sciences. In this paper I explore the theory of the event to be found in the recent work of Alain Badiou, relating his ideas to the particular case of the 1871 Paris Commune. I focus on particular problems with his approach, using an alternative formulation of the event found in the work of William Sewell Jr, which for purposes of comparison and critical debate I also relate to the event of the Paris Commune. I conclude by raising and discussing a range of wider issues that arise from the comparison.