Books in the Plateaus - New Directions in Deleuze Studies series

One of the terminological constants in the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze is the word 'immanence', and it has therefore become a foothold for those wishing to understand exactly what 'Deleuzian philosophy' is. Deleuze's philosophy of immanence is held to be fundamentally characterised by its opposition to all philosophies of 'transcendence'. On that basis, it is widely believed that Deleuze's project is premised on a return to a materialist metaphysics. Christian Kerslake argues that such an interpretation is fundamentally misconceived, and has led to misunderstandings of Deleuze's philosophy, which is rather one of the latest heirs to the post-Kantian tradition of thought about immanence. This will be the first book to assess Deleuze's relationship to Kantian epistemology and post-Kantian philosophy, and will attempt to make Deleuze's philosophy intelligible to students working within that tradition. But it also attempts to reconstruct our image of the post-Kantian tradition, isolating a lineage that takes shape in the work of Schelling and Wronski, and which is developed in the twentieth century by Bergson, Warrain and Deleuze.

The first study of Deleuze's critical and clinical projectAidan Tynan addresses Deleuze's assertion, that 'literature is an enterprise of health', and shows how a concern of health and illness was a characteristic of his philosophy as a whole, from his earliest works to his groundbreaking collaborations with Guattari, to his final, enigmatic statements on 'life'.He explains why alcoholism, anorexia, manic depression and schizophrenia are key concepts in Deleuze's literary theory, and shows how, with the turn to schizoanalysis, literature takes on a crucial political and ethical role in helping us to diagnose our present pathologies and articulate the possibilities of a health to come.Key Features * The first book length study of Deleuze's critical and clinical project and the conceptualisations of health and illness he developed over the course of his career * Uses the idea of the literary clinic to unify Deleuze's literary theory with the political critique he developed with Guattari, and argues in this way for a distinctively Deleuzian critical practice * Draws on Deleuze conceptualisations of health and illness to reassess his relationship to key thinkers such as Spinoza, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and Melanie Klein and literary figures such as Melville F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kafka, Beckett and Artaud

Ridvan Askin brings together aesthetics, contemporary North American fiction, Gilles Deleuze, narrative theory and the recent speculative turn to answer the question, 'what is narrative?'

Theoretically sophisticated and meticulously situated at the fraught scene of reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in contemporary Australia, Postcolonial Agency is an inspiring manifesto for non-imperial mutuality. Bignall's advocacy of an ethics of joy opens up a new direction for postcolonial studies.Professor Leela Ghandi, Department of English, University of ChicagoA sustained piece of theorisation about the postcolonial to rival Peter Hallward's 'Absolutely Postcolonial'.Simone Bignall argues that a non-imperial concept of ethical and political agency and a materialist philosophy of transformation are embedded within a minor tradition of Western philosophy. Postcolonial Agency provides a significantly new understanding of the processes of social transformation faced by many societies as they struggle with the aftermath of empire. It also offers a valuable new way of conceptualising practices of postcolonial sociability. It will be of interest to students and researchers in political and postcolonial studies, cultural studies, critical theory and Continental philosophy.

Deleuze's philosophy of immanence, with its vigorous rejection of every appeal to the beyond, is often presumed to be indifferent to the concerns of religion. Daniel Barber shows that this is not the case. Addressing the intersection between Deleuze's thought and the notion of religion, he proposes an alliance between immanence and the act of naming God. In doing so, he gives us a way out of the paralysing debate between religion and the secular. What matters is not to take one side or the other, but to create the new in this world.

The Invention of a People explores the residual relation between Heidegger's thought and Deleuze's novelty. Contextualising the problematic of a people-to-come within a larger political and philosophical context, Janae Sholtz casts Deleuze's project is cast as both an extension and radicalization of the Heideggerian themes of immanence, ontological difference and the transformative potential of art. Sholtz invents creative encounters which act as provocations from the outside, opening new lines of flight and previously unthought terrain. Ultimately she develops a diagrammatic image of a people-to-come that is constantly in flux and can answer the demands of the untimely future.

F. LeRon Shults explores Deleuze's fascination with theological themes and shows how his entire corpus can be understood as a creative atheist machine that liberates thinking, acting and feeling. Shults also demonstrates how the flow of a productive atheism can be increased by bringing Deleuzian concepts into dialogue with insights derived from the bio-cultural sciences of religion.

Untimely Affects offers an ethical and aesthetic interweaving of Deleuzian philosophy and close film analysis to discern how thought persists productively after the horrors of World War II. In this first extensive analysis of Chris Marker and Alain Resnais' films, Nadine Boljkovac draws on concepts and images that interrogate 'what we are now living through', in the words of Klossowski's Nietzsche. Mindful of the seen and unseen 'that quicken the heart' (Marker), this book of film-philosophy discerns new and deeply ethical life-affirming possibilities through its weave of cine-philosophy. As such, this book speaks directly to essences of cinema, thought and life through creative untimeliness and the idea of the 'ever new'.

Engaging with questions of representation, Ideas and the transcendental, Daniela Voss offers a sophisticated treatment of the Kantian aspects of Deleuze's thought, taking account of Leibniz, Maimon, Lautman and Nietzsche.

We are witnessing the return of political revolution. However, this is not a return to the classical forms of revolution: the capture of the state, the political representation of the party, the centrality of the proletariat or the leadership of the vanguard. After the failure of such tactics over the last century, revolutionary strategy is now headed in an entirely new direction. Thomas Nail argues that Deleuze, Guattari and the Zapatistas are at the theoretical and practical heart of this new direction. 'Returning to Revolution' is the first full-length book devoted to Deleuze and Guattari's concept of revolution and to their connection with Zapatismo.

Intervening into fields including posthumanist, disability, animal and feminist studies, and current critiques of capitalism and consumerism, Frida Beckman recovers a theory of sexuality from Deleuze's work.

Considers the 'strong readings' that Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze imposed on the texts they read. Why do philosophers read literature? How do they read it? Does their philosophy derive from their reading of literature? If so, to what extent? Anyone who reads contemporary European philosophers has to ask such questions. Lecercle demonstrates that philosophers need literature, as much as literary critics need philosophy: it is an exercise not in the philosophy of literature, where literature is a mere object of analysis, but in philosophy and literature, a heady and unusual mix.

What could queer theory do and become had it not been so entrenched in the notion of sexuality? Holding queer theory to its promise to revolutionise our ways of thinking, Nir Kedem offers a forceful encounter between Deleuze's work and contemporary queer thought to provide both critical and practical means to re-evaluate and rework key concepts and methods -- especially sexuality. Kedem provides a new pragmatic approach to working with Deleuze across multiple disciplines, a rigorous demonstration of its critical and creative power, as well as extensive analysis of the relations between Deleuze and queer thought. All of which exemplify that despite -- if not owing to -- the unassuming role of sexuality in his thought, Deleuze proves to be queer thought's true ally. Nir Kedem is Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies in the Department of Cultural Studies, Creation and Production at Sapir Academic College, Israel.

This book identifies the original impetus and the driving force behind Deleuze's philosophy as a whole and the many concepts it creates.