The Incident at Antioch/L'Incident D'Antioche: A Tragedy in Three Acts/Tragédie en Trois Actes

Mark Twain wrote that a particular religious tract produced in America was "chloroform in print." No more apt description may be made of this work by contemporary French philosopher Badiou (Being and Event). Drawing upon events early in the history of Christianity, as well as the student-led riots in Paris in 1968 and, at the same time, incorporating elements of Paul Claudel's La Ville, Badiou's prose is impenetrable to anyone for whom Cixous and Deleuze are not constant companions. Most grievously of all, the text fails to engage an audience: "Is working-class thought, which the world has been awaiting for 200 years and having doubts about for the last 20, just a sick man startled awake from a long sleep by the collapse of the nursing home roof?" Characters speak at each other or declaim downstage center. Truly, it reads like bad Brecht. The volume includes the French version on facing pages and comes with scholarly apparatus: introduction, endnotes, bibliography, and an interview.