Abstract

This paper addresses an apparent shift in Alain Badiou’s thinking on sex and the universal. Previously Badiou had maintained that sex was a particularity that requires subtraction from the universal, together with the other predicative descriptions of identity such as nation, race, and class. However in a recent paper, “Figures of Femininity in the Contemporary World,” Badiou contends that the sexuation of philosophical and symbolic thought is “inevitable.” Taking Badiou’s readings of Samuel Beckett as its guide, and addressing Badiou’s discussions of change in Logics of Worlds and Subject of Change, this paper works through the implications of this new claim. It asks whether Badiou’s thought allows the possibility of a real change in his philosophy, including thereby the potential to change one’s sex.