How about a discussion forum on Reading Deleuze? Any takers?

Post edited by: Matthew, at: 2006/12/29 00:32

what would you like to read, in particular?

do you mean, let's have an online reading group and read Deleuze, or do you mean, let's just discuss what reading Deleuze is like?

Either really. Is there any Deleuze you would be interested in reading on-line as a group? I just finished "Difference & Repetition" and am currently reading "Nietzsche" as a supplemental task for a class I'm in, I have Deleuze on the mind a lot. I'll be putting up more discussion topics soon, feel free to add your own, though were still building up the membership.

I'm a huge Deleuze reader, I'm up for it. I've read his books on Spinoza and Nietzsche, Milles Plateaux and Anti-Oedipus, his Dialogues with Claire Parnet, his classes on AE and MP, Critic and Clinic, etc.
If you want to discuss any of those, or just Deleuze in general, let's go.

I tried psoting something similar yesterday but lost the text in the timeout, something deleuze and bergson would both have appreciated... so i'll try again and read the error messages like a good engineeer...

My interest in Deleuze and Deleuze and Guattari is long standing and began with a reading of AO (AntiOedipus) before reading backwards and forwards. At that time there was very little work available by Deleuze, (Proust and Signs, Sacher-Masoch, and eventually the I&C translation of Rhizome) and even less secondary work available. In a sense my reading of deleuze and deleuze and guattari took the historical route of when the texts became available. But now the great difficulty is that there is so much material available that it's difficult to imagine how to begin. Along the aesthetics line what interests you perhaps ? Visual arts and representation perhaps ? Along the line of Network, swarms and micropolitics ? Difference, multiplicities and singularities ? The posityive relationship to structuralism ?

How then to identify what deleuze to read and what secondary literature is worth bothering with... The secondary literature question is easier because for sometime it's been clear that there is a steadily growing split between those who are left-deleuzians and those who are right-deleuzians. The divide as you might recognize is over the relation to marx, socialism and communism. On the left-deleuzian side there those who recognize and appreciate the appearance of the spinoza-marxist tendencies and the use of deleuze and guattari in the re-theorization of the multitude (negri and hardt ), and on the right-deleuzian side there are those who regard deleuze's positive relations to marx as an error (deLanda) or say “Deleuze was never a Marxist, nor a post-Marxist...” (rajchman) This is not the only split emerging but it's certainly an increasingly crucial one. Whereas others have simply assumed that deleuze's relationship to marx was and is obvious (negri, mackenzie, stivale).

But enough to staret with....

Devos,

Thanks for the post. FYI, the time out is set for 30mins. Thanks for the heads up though.

I was involved in a discussion not long ago, where the distinction was made between left and right Deleuzians. However, we tended to distinguish between a materialist Deleuze, the Deleuze of DeLanda as well as Hardt, and the immaterialist, or perhaps even transcendental readers of Deleuze (we were thinking of the texts of Hallward and Badiou).

I am reminded of Deleuze's comment that he and Guattari remained "Marxists" in their own way, as well as his planned work on Marx (which Patton and Read take up in their own ways). I'm embarrassingly unfamiliar with DeLanda's discounting of Deleuze's Marxism, if you could point me too it, that would be great. It seems to me an odd point to make, and one that would (upon first thought) be unnecessary for DeLanda's usage of Deleuze.

I guess its less surprising to me that the Lacan-Badiou writers would argue against a Deleuze-Marx reading, than of someone like DeLanda. But these are all initial thoughts.

I think its an interesting question. What Deleuze to read. I would like to suggest that we might look at “Desert Islands” or “Two Regimes of Madness” or “Negotiations”, for a less structured, informal reading group; collectively annotating various shorter works.

Although, I also think a reading of Spinoza-Deleuze may be especially interesting; and would have bearing on the writings of Hardt/Negri and their use of Deleuze.

Post edited by: Matthew, at: 2006/12/27 21:43