Messianic media : Benjamin's cinema, Badiou's matheme, Negri's multitude

Messianic themes resound today not only in popular culture and global politics but also in academic theory. In contemporary thought the topos of the messianic serves as a kind of hinge for two otherwise distinct notions: the event as what happens irreducibly to local cause or determination; and redemption as what overcomes historical catastrophe and global loss. While the category of the event would open for thought the possibility of the new in general"”what comes, that of redemption would give sense to that for which we hope"”what saves. To the extent that in our contemporary constellation of social and political realities we can or must hope for something new, the idea of the messianic would promise a way to think and perhaps to meet the demands of our present condition.