In this talk I will look at the methodological role of ‘place’ (lieu, place, topos) across different thematic contexts in the writings of Louis Althusser. These concern 1) discussions of Marx’s metaphor of capitalist society through an edifice – topique – containing the base and superstructure, and its comparison with Freud’s topographical description of the function of the unconscious; 2) topique and topology as what allows to capture and deconstruct the nature of Western philosophical practice; and 3) a rethinking of the relations between politics and philosophy, or theory, through a reading of Machiavelli. In the discussion of Machiavelli, in particular, the concept of place has an important role in thinking political agency. Looking at the concept of place, I want to understand the relation between theory and political practice, the spatio-temporal structures constituted through that relation and the questions concerning strategy implicated in it.

Jussi Palmusaari currently teaches at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, at Kingston University London, where he also holds a PhD. His book For Revolt: Rancière, Abstract Space and Emancipation is forthcoming from Bloomsbury.