Deleuze & Guattari

An advanced introduction to the critical theory of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and their impact on discourses of philosophy, aesthetics, literary criticism, film theory, feminist studies, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, geography, ethics, and political theory. Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1980) will be read in its entirety. Excerpts from extensive interviews with Deleuze (L’abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, 1996) that touch upon his collaboration with Guattari will also be considered.

Issues addressed include Deleuze and Guattari’s practice of nomad philosophy, revalued notions of monstrosity and becoming-other, the “body without organs” and its deterritorialization of conceptions of “organism,” lines of flight away from dominant familial, judiciary, economic, and bureaucratic assemblages, and the rhizomatic intersection of heterogeneous forces and organizations forming connections with the outside (viral, animal, vegetal, technological, political, etc.).