Lines of the Symbolic in Psychoanalysis Series

Challenges current understandings of populism as a synonym of hegemony. Considers the work of the main contemporary post-Althusserian thinkers, who generally are also Lacanians, including Laclau (and Mouffe), Badiou, Žižek and Rancière. Draws out the consequences of this concept for contemporary political theory: the question of how to define ‘left’ and ‘right’; the question of popular enthusiasm and affect; ‘truth’ versus ‘post-truth’; the question of leadership; populism and nationalism; and the relation between populism and political parties.