Deleuze, the dark precursor : dialectic, structure, being / Eleanor Kaufman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kaufman, Eleanor.

Series:

Rethinking theory (Baltimore, Md.)

Rethinking theory

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Deleuze, Gilles, 1925-1995.

Deleuze, Gilles.

Dialectic.

Structuralism.

Ontology.

Physical Description:

xii, 245 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

Summary:

Gilles Deleuze is considered one of the most important French philosophers of the twentieth century. Eleanor Kaufman situates Deleuze in relation to others of his generation, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Klossowski, Maurice Blanchot, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, and she engages the provocative readings of Deleuze by Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek.

Deleuze, The Dark Precursor is organized around three themes that critically overlap: dialectic, structure, and being. Kaufman argues that "Deleuze's work is deeply concerned with these questions, even when he advocates for the seemingly opposite notions of univocity, nonsense, and becoming." By drawing on scholastic thought and reading somewhat against the grain, Kaufman suggests that these often-maligned themes allow for a nuanced, even positive reflection on apparently negative states of being, such as extreme inertia. This attention to the negative or minor category has implications that extend beyond philosophy and into feminist theory, film, American studies, anthropology, and architecture. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part 1 Dialectic

1 Solid Dialectic in Sartre and Deleuze 31

2 Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Mind 45

3 Klossowski and Orthodoxy 59

4 Cinema and the Tableau Vivant 76

Part 2 Structure

5 Betraying Well (Zizek and Badiou) 87

6 Lévi-Strauss and the Joy of Abstraction 96

7 Extreme Formality and the World without Others 109

Part 3 Being

8 French Thought and the Space of American Literature 125

9 Bartleby, the Immobile 137

10 In the Middle of Things 146

11 Midnight, or the Inertia of Being 152

12 Living Virtually in a Cluttered House 169.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781421405896

9781421406480

142140589X

1421406489

OCLC:

768417880