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19th Century French (Literature), 20th Century French, Postmodernism (Literature), Stendhal, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and 17 moreCritical Theory, Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, Narratology, Science and Romanticism, Literature and Philosophy, Vitalism and Neo-Humoralism, Friendship, Politics and Friendship, Contemporary French Philosophy, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Michel Foucault, Antonin Artaud, Existentialism, Philosophy, Franco Berardi, and Cajun Culture edit
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My previous work has been in nineteenth-century French literary and cultural studies (books on Stendhal, Valles, and ... moreMy previous work has been in nineteenth-century French literary and cultural studies (books on Stendhal, Valles, and Maupassant), and I continue work on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. My current research is work on The Deleuze Seminars project, deleuze.cla.purdue.edu, developing the transcriptions and translations of Deleuze's recorded seminars (1979 to 1987) and preparing access in English to the transcribed early seminars (1971-1979). edit
This is the English subtitled the DVD of Deleuze and Parnet's L’Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, the 8-hour interview with Deleuze by Claire Parent (in 1988-89), starting from “A as in Animal”, ending in “Z as in Zigzag”, with stops en route... more
This is the English subtitled the DVD of Deleuze and Parnet's L’Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, the 8-hour interview with Deleuze by Claire Parent (in 1988-89), starting from “A as in Animal”, ending in “Z as in Zigzag”, with stops en route through D (Desire), H (History of Philosophy), L (Literature), P (Professor), R (Resistance), S (Style), T (Tennis). I served as translator for the Semiotext(e) and MIT Press dvd production. For a complete English translation of the transcript, see deleuze.cla.purdue.edu.
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This is the English subtitled the DVD of Deleuze and Parnet's L’Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, the 8-hour interview with Deleuze by Claire Parent (in 1988-89), starting from “A as in Animal”, ending in “Z as in Zigzag”, with stops en route... more
This is the English subtitled the DVD of Deleuze and Parnet's L’Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, the 8-hour interview with Deleuze by Claire Parent (in 1988-89), starting from “A as in Animal”, ending in “Z as in Zigzag”, with stops en route through D (Desire), H (History of Philosophy), L (Literature), P (Professor), R (Resistance), S (Style), T (Tennis). I served as translator for the Semiotext(e) and MIT Press dvd production. For a complete English translation of the transcript, see deleuze.cla.purdue.edu.
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Logic of Sense is one of Deleuze's seminal works. First published in 1969, shortly after Difference and Repetition, it prefigures the hybrid style and methods he would use in his later writing with Felix Guattari. In an early review... more
Logic of Sense is one of Deleuze's seminal works. First published in 1969, shortly after Difference and Repetition, it prefigures the hybrid style and methods he would use in his later writing with Felix Guattari. In an early review Michel Foucault wrote that Logic of Sense 'should be read as the boldest and most insolent of metaphysical treatises'. The book is divided into 34 'series' and five appendices covering a diverse range of topics including, sense, nonsense, event, sexuality, psychoanalysis, paradoxes, schizophrenia, literature and becoming and includes fascinating close textual readings of works by Lewis Carroll, Sigmund Freud, Seneca, Pierre Klossowski, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Emile Zola.
This is the revised translated edition.
This is the revised translated edition.
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Logic of Sense is one of Deleuze's seminal works. First published in 1969, shortly after Difference and Repetition, it prefigures the hybrid style and methods he would use in his later writing with Felix Guattari. In an early review... more
Logic of Sense is one of Deleuze's seminal works. First published in 1969, shortly after Difference and Repetition, it prefigures the hybrid style and methods he would use in his later writing with Felix Guattari. In an early review Michel Foucault wrote that Logic of Sense 'should be read as the boldest and most insolent of metaphysical treatises'. The book is divided into 34 'series' and five appendices covering a diverse range of topics including, sense, nonsense, event, sexuality, psychoanalysis, paradoxes, schizophrenia, literature and becoming and includes fascinating close textual readings of works by Lewis Carroll, Sigmund Freud, Seneca, Pierre Klossowski, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Emile Zola.
This is the original translated edition; see subsequent for 2015 revised edition.
This is the original translated edition; see subsequent for 2015 revised edition.
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As indicated, this is the second edition of my edited study of Key Concepts in Deleuze's writings. These include: Force (Kenneth Surin), Expression (Gregg Lambert), Difference, repetition (Melissa McMahon), Desire (Eugene W. Holland),... more
As indicated, this is the second edition of my edited study of Key Concepts in Deleuze's writings. These include: Force (Kenneth Surin), Expression (Gregg Lambert), Difference, repetition (Melissa McMahon), Desire (Eugene W. Holland), Sense, series (Judith Poxon, Charles Stivale), Event (James Williams), Assemblage (J. MacGregor Wise), Micropolitics (Karen Houle), Becoming-woman (Patty Sotirin), The minor (Ronald Bogue), Style, stutter (Christa Albrecht-Crane), The logic of sensation (Jennifer Daryl Slack), Cinema (Felicity J. Colman), From affection to soul (Gregory J. Seigworth), Folds and folding (Tom Conley), Critical, clinical (Daniel W. Smith), Philosophy (Gregory Flaxman).
This is the English subtitled the DVD of Deleuze and Parnet's L’Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, the 8-hour interview with Deleuze by Claire Parent (in 1988-89), starting from “A as in Animal”, ending in “Z as in Zigzag”, with stops en route... more
This is the English subtitled the DVD of Deleuze and Parnet's L’Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, the 8-hour interview with Deleuze by Claire Parent (in 1988-89), starting from “A as in Animal”, ending in “Z as in Zigzag”, with stops en route through D (Desire), H (History of Philosophy), L (Literature), P (Professor), R (Resistance), S (Style), T (Tennis). I served as translator for the Semiotext(e) and MIT Press dvd production. For a complete English translation of the transcript, see deleuze.cla.purdue.edu.
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This volume is a selection of essays presented at the 2006 conference on "Gilles Deleuze: Texts and Image", organized at the University of South Carolina, 5-8 April 2007, under the auspices of Paul Allen Miller and with the support of the... more
This volume is a selection of essays presented at the 2006 conference on "Gilles Deleuze: Texts and Image", organized at the University of South Carolina, 5-8 April 2007, under the auspices of Paul Allen Miller and with the support of the Program in Comparative Literature, the English Department and the College of Arts and Sciences. With an introduction by Eugene W. Holland, the volume is divided into three sections: Text/Literature (Ronald Bogue, Colin Gardner, Sarah Posman, Karen Houle), Image/Art (Elizabeth Grosz, Eric Alliez and Jean-Claude Bonne, Nadine Boljkovac, Felicity Colman, Jondi Keane, Stephen Zepke, Julie Kuhlken), and Philosophy (Constantin V. Boundas, Helene Frichot).
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This is a study of the concept of friendship as it appears in Deleuze's work and life, with his 8-hour interview with Claire Parnet, L'Abecedaire de Gilles Deleuze, as a key source. The ENTIRE TEXT is downloadable from Project Muse at... more
This is a study of the concept of friendship as it appears in Deleuze's work and life, with his 8-hour interview with Claire Parnet, L'Abecedaire de Gilles Deleuze, as a key source.
The ENTIRE TEXT is downloadable from Project Muse at https://muse.jhu.edu/book/3415/ .
The ENTIRE TEXT is downloadable from Project Muse at https://muse.jhu.edu/book/3415/ .
This is a translation, by myself and Giuseppina Mecchia, of the study by Franco Berardi 'Bifo', Felix. Narrazione dell’incontro con il pensiero di Guattari, cartografia visionaria del tempo che viene (1981), as well as Giuseppina... more
This is a translation, by myself and Giuseppina Mecchia, of the study by Franco Berardi 'Bifo', Felix. Narrazione dell’incontro con il pensiero di Guattari, cartografia visionaria del tempo che viene (1981), as well as Giuseppina Mecchia's 2005 interview with Bifo.
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This is the first (of two) edition of an edited volume on specific key concepts in the works of Gilles Deleuze (please see the 2011 Second Edition profile for detailed information). This text is available via Google search as a pdf.
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This edited volume brings together 20 essays on different facets of teaching modern French literature with a focus on pedagogical strategies. The volume's four sections are: 1/ Instructing Readers: Linguistic and Literary Frameworks, 2/... more
This edited volume brings together 20 essays on different facets of teaching modern French literature with a focus on pedagogical strategies. The volume's four sections are: 1/ Instructing Readers: Linguistic and Literary Frameworks, 2/ Exploring the Cultural: Pedagogical Devices, 3/ Expanding Horizons: Interdisciplinary Challenges, 4/ Stitching the Quilt: Institutional Demands, Curricular Strategies.
This book is a practical exercise in cultural studies within a Francophone context, specifically, Louisiana Cajun dance and music culture, as I pursued research during the 1990s. After discussing my relation to Cajun culture and the... more
This book is a practical exercise in cultural studies within a Francophone context, specifically, Louisiana Cajun dance and music culture, as I pursued research during the 1990s. After discussing my relation to Cajun culture and the research I undertake, I study (chapter 2) some stereotypes of Cajun life in relation to the music, then (chapter 3) in relation to selected cinema images, and then (chapter 4) in relation to this "thisness" of the Cajun dance-and-music event. I consider aspects of cultural "disenchantment" (or alienation) in chapter 5, distinct ways in which the various images previously discussed have been coopted and eroded, but I conclude on a conciliatory note by considering how all this constitutes a cultural dialogism most evident in the call-and-response of the music and dance.
This book brings together a number of essay I wrote in the late 1980s and 1990s, some available as downloads on Academe (marked *). After situating the "two-fold thought", I open part I by creating an intersection between Deleuze and... more
This book brings together a number of essay I wrote in the late 1980s and 1990s, some available as downloads on Academe (marked *). After situating the "two-fold thought", I open part I by creating an intersection between Deleuze and Guattari's schizo-analysis and Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and then shift to consider "The Rhizomatics of Cyberspace."* Part II includes: "New Cartographies of the Literary: From Kafka to A Thousand Plateaus", "Mille/Punks/Cyber/Plateaus: Becomings-x",* "Nomad Love and the War Machine: Michel Tournier's Gilles et Jeanne",* "Of Hecceities and Ritournelles: 'Spaces of Affect' and the Cajun Dance Arena",* and Part III includes "Pragmatic/Machinic: Discussion with Felix Guattari (19 March 1985)",* "Comments on a Meeting with Gilles Deleuze",* and "Comment peut-on 'etre deleuzien'?: The Gift of Pedagogy".* The appendix consists of my translation with Melissa McMahon of Deleuze's 1972 essay, "How Do We Recognize Structuralism?", the same translation included in the edition of Deleuze's occasional pieces, Two Regimes of Madness, ed. David Lapoujade (New York and Cambridge, MA: Semiotext(e)/MIT Press, 2006).
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This book is an study of the short stories (more than 300) by Guy de Maupassant from a narratological perspective.
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This book is a study of strategies of narrative temporality in Stendhal's major novels, from a perspective of the narratology developed by Gerard Genette.
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This book, a revised version of my doctoral dissertation, is a study of Jules Vallès's major novels, L'Enfant, Le Bachelier, and L'Insurge'. One critical perspective is derived from the works of Deleuze and Guattari.
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Page 1. BROMBERT 7ictor Hugo and the Visionary Novel Page 2. Page 3. VictorHugo and the Visionary Novel Page 4. His name surrounding ruins. Son nom entourant des mines. Page 5. Victor Hugo and the Visionary ...
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In seeking authors who might address the relationship between the notions of philosophy and of creativity, the call for papers for this special issue of Angelaki invited consideration of the physical terms of each of these pursuits –... more
In seeking authors who might address the relationship between the notions of philosophy and of creativity, the call for papers for this special issue of Angelaki invited consideration of the physical terms of each of these pursuits – philosophy and creative invention. The daily praxes of individual authorial and artistic pursuits are what have drawn us close to these selected texts. Individual authors’ obsessions and obsessive interests highlight the immense variation in how aesthetics operates as a determinant mode for those individuals and the communities with which they choose to engage. Aesthetic pursuits might be found to be a guilty pleasure in this moment of the history of the world. Yet through diverse articulations of such pursuits and pleasures the situations of the world might come into clearer relief, to be able to be seen, heard, and understood more readily, through another’s observations, through another’s perspectives, through another’s aesthetic forms. Many essays in this issue call for the utilization of the knowledge that creative forms can pass to us, and through their historical witness, and subjective confession, they become artefacts of processes operating the creation of thought. Many essays make connections across theoretical and practical lines, creating vectors of creativity themselves and showing how writers and artists have done so in contemporary writing and art. Above all, it is the play with language, and the functions of language – walking the lines of the text – that enable these stories of creative forces to unfold most fully. At the heart of this pursuit might lie the descriptions and allegories these authors bring to bear upon their interests – their passionate and vested interests in exploring worlds and expressing them in diverse ways that attempt to reach beyond the standard metaphysics of much contemporary philosophical writing. The ontologies expressed within are not insensitive to life’s pleasures – stimulation of the senses as well as intellect through our landscapes, architecture, music, art, friendship, love, the cinema, the novel, communication of intellectual and sensory pursuits, pleasures and pains. To pursue the often inadvertent construction that constitutes the creative process without finality or absolute status, Zsuzsa Baross provides several examples of how creativity is not necessarily governed by the power of subjectivity. In this way, she establishes a context for discussing a subjective displacement par excellence, innovative cinematic creation through found footage. In contrast, Karen Houle and EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
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Contents Contributors vii Acknowledgements x Abbreviations xi Introduction: Gilles Deleuze, a life in friendship 1 Charles J. Stivale PART I: PHILOSOPHIES 1 Force 19 Kenneth Surin 2 Expression 31 Gregg Lambert 3 Difference, repetition 42... more
Contents Contributors vii Acknowledgements x Abbreviations xi Introduction: Gilles Deleuze, a life in friendship 1 Charles J. Stivale PART I: PHILOSOPHIES 1 Force 19 Kenneth Surin 2 Expression 31 Gregg Lambert 3 Difference, repetition 42 Melissa McMahon 4 Desire 53 Eugene W. ...
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The Folds of Friendship Gilles Deleuze's ABCs CHARLES J. STIVALE Friendship, in its nature, purpose, and effects, has been an important concern of philosophy since antiquity. It was of particular signif1cance in the life of... more
The Folds of Friendship Gilles Deleuze's ABCs CHARLES J. STIVALE Friendship, in its nature, purpose, and effects, has been an important concern of philosophy since antiquity. It was of particular signif1cance in the life of Gilles Deleuze, one of the most original and ...
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This essay is a reflection on the circumstances that led me to a particular research project, on Cajun dance and music spaces, and also on the project's mutations through subsequent phases of development. Above all, this essay... more
This essay is a reflection on the circumstances that led me to a particular research project, on Cajun dance and music spaces, and also on the project's mutations through subsequent phases of development. Above all, this essay attempts to take stock of the difficulties personal, ...
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An article developed from my doctoral thesis on Jules Vallès's Jacques Vingtras Trilogy, this essay attempts to account for the family drama at the start of this trilogy outside the Oedipal coordinates by considering how... more
An article developed from my doctoral thesis on Jules Vallès's Jacques Vingtras Trilogy, this essay attempts to account for the family drama at the start of this trilogy outside the Oedipal coordinates by considering how unconscious desire emerges in the text and how it is linked to the social investments wholly prevalent through out the three novels.
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This essay is my "dance" with Mikhail Bakhtin, i.e. employing some of his insights on dialogism to the six-story volume titled _Les Diabolique_ by the misogynist 19th-century French writer, Barbey d'Aurevilly.
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Review of book by Janet Beizer
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This chapter contains sections titled: I, II, II, IV, Appendix A. “help manners”, Appendix B. Chronology of Cyberdemocratic Processes at LambdaMOO and MediaMOO, Appendix C. Reintroducing Wizardly Fiat Message 300 from *News (d123), Notes,... more
This chapter contains sections titled: I, II, II, IV, Appendix A. “help manners”, Appendix B. Chronology of Cyberdemocratic Processes at LambdaMOO and MediaMOO, Appendix C. Reintroducing Wizardly Fiat Message 300 from *News (d123), Notes, References
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While the severe constriction of the job market for new Ph.D. recipients during the 1990s is hardly a secret, what tends to be much more so for students who would enter this field is the array of professional activities and practices with... more
While the severe constriction of the job market for new Ph.D. recipients during the 1990s is hardly a secret, what tends to be much more so for students who would enter this field is the array of professional activities and practices with which faculty have become familiar through hard experience. This essay reports on efforts undertaken in my department to orient graduate students to these practices by means of a pro-seminar on professional issues in foreign languages, literatures, and cultural studies. This report considers successive models of the pro-seminar's organization, specific content of each of its units, and conclusions as well as certain cautions.
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Diversite stylistique de l'emploi des anachronies dans " C.P. ". L'analepse simultanee, l'analepse instantanee, l'analepse ponctuelle. Les prolepses. La temporalite fictive en tant que strategie de... more
Diversite stylistique de l'emploi des anachronies dans " C.P. ". L'analepse simultanee, l'analepse instantanee, l'analepse ponctuelle. Les prolepses. La temporalite fictive en tant que strategie de l'expression du realisme subjectif
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... of the "rhizome." In Section II, I extend my understanding of different termsma-chines, plateaus, becomings, among othersfrom different literary and sociocultural perspectives: the "literary... more
... of the "rhizome." In Section II, I extend my understanding of different termsma-chines, plateaus, becomings, among othersfrom different literary and sociocultural perspectives: the "literary seam" that Deleuze and Guattari mine throughout A Thousand Plateaus (Chapter 4 ...
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The availability of the translations in Essays Critical and Clinical (ECC) is a boon not only to aficionados of Deleuze and Guattari studies, but also to readers more generally who seek yet another accessible entry point to Deleuze's... more
The availability of the translations in Essays Critical and Clinical (ECC) is a boon not only to aficionados of Deleuze and Guattari studies, but also to readers more generally who seek yet another accessible entry point to Deleuze's thought and philosophy. Moreover, the additional collection of critical studies edited by Eleanor Kaufman and Kevin Jon Heller provides further evidence of the mini-boom in D&G studies occurring in the latter part of this decade.
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3 The strata are phenomena of thickening of the Body of the earth, both molecular and molar: accumulation, coagulation, sedimentation, tucks. These are Belts, Pincers, Articulations. Three great strata are summarily and tradi-tionally... more
3 The strata are phenomena of thickening of the Body of the earth, both molecular and molar: accumulation, coagulation, sedimentation, tucks. These are Belts, Pincers, Articulations. Three great strata are summarily and tradi-tionally distinguished: physical-...
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IN THE SECTION OF MICHEL TOURNIER'S intellectual autobiography, The Wind Spirit, entitled "The Mythic Dimension," Tournier reminisces about his association with Gilles Deleuze at the Lycee Carnot in the early 1940s:... more
IN THE SECTION OF MICHEL TOURNIER'S intellectual autobiography, The Wind Spirit, entitled "The Mythic Dimension," Tournier reminisces about his association with Gilles Deleuze at the Lycee Carnot in the early 1940s: "All the tired philosophy of the curriculum passed ...
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During the mid-to late-1980s, things Cajun and Creole became "hot," in the conjoined senses of spicy and popular, most notably in cuisine and music, so much so that various companies fought during the decade's... more
During the mid-to late-1980s, things Cajun and Creole became "hot," in the conjoined senses of spicy and popular, most notably in cuisine and music, so much so that various companies fought during the decade's final years to employ Cajun and zydeco rhythms and images ...
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Gilles Deleuze (2006) Two Regimes of Madness , ed. David Lapoujade, trans. Ames Hodges and Mike Taormina, New York: Semiotext(e); Félix Guattari (2006) The Anti-Oedipus Papers , ed. Stéphane Nadaud, trans. Kélina Gotman, New York: Semiotext(e). Gilles Deleuze (2006) Two Regimes of Madness , ed. D...more
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This essay arises from the author's scepticism about the received notion, prevalent both in literary and cultural studies, that Roland Barthes's work of the 1960s constituted an abandonment of the previous decade's social... more
This essay arises from the author's scepticism about the received notion, prevalent both in literary and cultural studies, that Roland Barthes's work of the 1960s constituted an abandonment of the previous decade's social critique. The paper develops the argument that, to the ...
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CHARLEY. Hi, Susan {not her real name). SUSAN. Oh, hi, Charley {my real name). CHARLEY. So, how have you been? How are things going in [Pacific ... Susan turns, hurrying away from me toward the restaurant, while I check my own watch: yes,... more
CHARLEY. Hi, Susan {not her real name). SUSAN. Oh, hi, Charley {my real name). CHARLEY. So, how have you been? How are things going in [Pacific ... Susan turns, hurrying away from me toward the restaurant, while I check my own watch: yes, it is only 9:30 am ...
Review of two texts seemingly with little in common since Baudrillard's "Chroniques des annees 1977-1984" contribute to his project of describing modes of (post)modern 'simulacres et simulations," whereas Ferry/Renaut seek to question the... more
Review of two texts seemingly with little in common since Baudrillard's "Chroniques des annees 1977-1984" contribute to his project of describing modes of (post)modern 'simulacres et simulations," whereas Ferry/Renaut seek to question the very post-structuralist underpinnings that inform Baudrillard's work. The interest of this juxtaposition lies in their shared status as "chapters" in what we might call "tales of the conjoncture", i.e. their mutual de-mythification of contemporary lieux communs of the French intelligentsia, political for Baudrillard, philosophical for Ferry/Renaut.
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Review of Pierre Van den Heuvel's extensive "poetique de l'enonciation" (poetics of enunciation) which links a dense theoretical development (part I, "Theorie et methode") to six practical analyses (part II) which nonetheless stand on... more
Review of Pierre Van den Heuvel's extensive "poetique de l'enonciation" (poetics of enunciation) which links a dense theoretical development (part I, "Theorie et methode") to six practical analyses (part II) which nonetheless stand on their own as studies of diverse examples of l'enonciation, i.e., the productive act through which the discursive subject manifests itself in a text.
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Poetics and Enunciation
Review of the ways that Mary Donaldson-Evans develops simultaneously the diachronic and synchronic axes of Maupassant's work, focusing on four thematic codes linked to sexuality and on the characters' "ominous tumble from an active to a... more
Review of the ways that Mary Donaldson-Evans develops simultaneously the diachronic and synchronic axes of Maupassant's work, focusing on four thematic codes linked to sexuality and on the characters' "ominous tumble from an active to a passive state" as a means both to explain this oeuvre's phantasmic nature and to nuance the diachronic outline of Maupassant's relationship with women.
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Review of Carroll's defense of three key French writers of so-called post-structuralism through a severe critique of those scholars either too hostile or now too fatigued to confront the theoretical challenges which have been raised... more
Review of Carroll's defense of three key French writers of so-called post-structuralism through a severe critique of those scholars either too hostile or now too fatigued to confront the theoretical challenges which have been raised through the debates of the structuralist/post-structuralist period. Carroll's complementary strategy is to locate the "paraesthetic" as that which is the most essential for comprehending the projects of the focal authors, defining "paraesthetics" as the role played by an approach to art and literature in the struggle of critical theory beyond the limitations of theory.
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Review of the careful and extraordinary history of the impact that Parisian culture made on the development of literary Modernism, a tour de force of biographical, literary historical and critical analyses which confront and dismantle... more
Review of the careful and extraordinary history of the impact that Parisian culture made on the development of literary Modernism, a tour de force of biographical, literary historical and critical analyses which confront and dismantle numerous received notions about two dozen French and American women artists.
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This challenging study addresses the problems of representation and writing as manifested by the literary depiction of portraits, and while basing her rich tapestry of analyses on works from an intriguing array of periods and literary... more
This challenging study addresses the problems of representation and writing as manifested by the literary depiction of portraits, and while basing her rich tapestry of analyses on works from an intriguing array of periods and literary traditions, Prof. Meltzer also develops an historical perspective, how the text "re-presents" the world to the reader, and on the other hand, a specular dimension, how the text "also re-presents itself" (2).
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Review of Ronald Schleifer's overview of Greimas's theories, an unapologetic, and seemingly unstylish, case for a renewed structuralist project based on an elucidation of the ongoing critical enterprise of A. J. Greimas. Indeed, Schleifer... more
Review of Ronald Schleifer's overview of Greimas's theories, an unapologetic, and seemingly unstylish, case for a renewed structuralist project based on an elucidation of the ongoing critical enterprise of A. J. Greimas. Indeed, Schleifer indicates that by studying how the semiotic apparatus proposed by Greimas (particularly the "semiotic square") "articulates and relates signifying and ideological values" (xxii), his goal is to offer a "modest contemplation of the nature of meaning in the context of contemporary semiotics" (xxiv). By contrasting and combining the fundamental linguistic presuppositions of the structuralist strategy on which Greimas develops his semiotics beyond the 1966 Structural Semantics, the initial chapter provides the frame for the book's overall strategy of relating the linguistic foundation of semiotics to the broader, socio-historical concerns of discourse analysis.
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Review of the Brian Massumi translation of Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, a seemingly thankless task given the formidable obstacles that this mammoth work presents. This is not merely a book divided into "plateaus" rather... more
Review of the Brian Massumi translation of Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, a seemingly thankless task given the formidable obstacles that this mammoth work presents. This is not merely a book divided into "plateaus" rather than chapters, it also contains quite evidently a highly specialized vocabulary drawing from an unusually diverse array of discursive fields. However, Massumi is indeed to be thanked heartily not only for substantially clearing this dense terminological thicket, but also for enhancing the peripheral, yet crucial critical apparatus which now renders A Thousand Plateaus more accessible as a research document. In the
introductory pages, Massumi's "Notes on the Translation" provide a brief, yet
much needed glossary of particular terms encountered in the work. Furthermore, his translator's notes and bibliography provide clear references to writings by Deleuze and Guattari as well as to the many works on which they base their insights. Finally, the index (compiled by Hassan Melehy) is a precious tool for cross-referencing the writers and concepts in play throughout A Thousand Plateaus.
introductory pages, Massumi's "Notes on the Translation" provide a brief, yet
much needed glossary of particular terms encountered in the work. Furthermore, his translator's notes and bibliography provide clear references to writings by Deleuze and Guattari as well as to the many works on which they base their insights. Finally, the index (compiled by Hassan Melehy) is a precious tool for cross-referencing the writers and concepts in play throughout A Thousand Plateaus.
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Review of the crucial Lyotard's work of vital importance in a period (then AND NOW) when revisionism of all stripes attempts to rewrite, and often simply deny, the occurrence of historical and cultural events, i.e. in attempting to... more
Review of the crucial Lyotard's work of vital importance in a period (then AND NOW) when revisionism of all stripes attempts to rewrite, and often simply deny, the occurrence of historical and cultural events, i.e. in attempting to reconstruct "reality" in the convenient names of (alt) "truth" and "common sense."
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Critical Theory and Poststructuralism provides a detailed explication of an array of complex philosophical questions bearing directly on current conceptions of critical discourse and practice. Among these are the problematics of critical... more
Critical Theory and Poststructuralism provides a detailed explication of an array of complex philosophical questions bearing directly on current conceptions of critical discourse and practice. Among these are the problematics of critical social theory particularly as developed by the Frankfurt School, and the interrelationships between this theory and "poststructuralism," a term whose validity "derives from certain vicissitudes of intercontinental intellectual history in the past two decades" (4). However, as this book's subtitle indicates, Poster seeks to ascertain what poststructuralism might offer to a reconstruction of critical theory within thesociocultural context of developments of the late twentieth century. Foremost among these is what Poster designates as the "mode of information," i.e. the "social relations mediated by electronic communication systems, which constitute new patterns of language" (126), as well as new ways in which the subject is constituted within society (128).
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Review of the first thorough overview of Deleuze and Guattari's work, well before the flood of the late 1990s-early 2000s
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The excitement and difficulties that Mark Poster's latest study generates arise from his bold attempt to define "a theory able to decode the linguistic dimension of the new forms of social interaction" occasioned by electronic... more
The excitement and difficulties that Mark Poster's latest study generates arise from his bold attempt to define "a theory able to decode the linguistic dimension of the new forms of social interaction" occasioned by electronic communication, i.e. the "mode of information" (5), at the core of which he sees the representative capabilities of language, transformed by diverse realms of communication (the media, data bases, state and corporate surveillance, scientific discourses). Organizing his study around the transformative impact of and on language within these four regions, Poster follows what he calls the "double imperative" (18) of shuttling between, on one hand, particular poststructuralist positions that reveal "the self-referential linguistic mechanisms" at work in the four aforementioned "sectors of electronically mediated communication" and, on the other, these sectors themselves and their subversion of the "authority effects of the poststructuralist position" (18). By linking "sectors" to theoretical positions —TV ads to Baudrillard (chapter 2), databases to Foucault (chapter 3), electronic writing to Derrida (chapter 4), scientific discourse to Lyotard (chapter 5) —, Poster hopes to call attention to the new features of "the contemporary social space," to modes of analyzing it, and to the disruptive potential of the theoretical concepts that his study foregrounds.
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A severely critical review of a survey book in the Twayne World Authors series of French structuralism
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Review of the then recently published (yet to be translated) final collaboration of Deleuze and Guattari
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Review of Trinh's first single-author book on theory, subtitled: Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics
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Review of an overview and analysis of the genetic critical approach
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Review of Massumi's "guide" to Deleuze & Guattari's two volumes of Capitalism & Schizophrenia, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus
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Review of Trinh's book Woman, Native, Other
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Review of Gane's book on Baudrillard
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Book review of Barbara Hill Rigney's study of madness and sexual politics in the works of Bronte, Woolf, Lessing, and Atwood.
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Book review of Elissa D Gelfand's study of the woman criminal and writings from French prisons.
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Book review of Janet L. Beizer's remarkable first book
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Review of Tuula Lehman Work(s): Transitions savantes et dissimulées: une étude structurelle des contes et nouvelles de Guy de Maupassant
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Review of Dorothy Kelly's Telling Glances: Voyeurism in the French Novel
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Book review of edited volume by John R Gillis, Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity
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Book review of a revised Twayne edition of an excellent overview of Stendhal's works by one of my most cherished professors.
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Book review of Yale French Studies 88
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Book review of Deleuze's 1990 volume Pourparlers, translated as Negotiations, a collection of interviews and selected essays, including the important "Postscript on Control Societies".
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Book review of Gilles Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical & E Kaufman and K Heller, ed., Deleuze and Guattari: New Mappings in Politics. The availability of the translations in Essays Critical and Clinical is a boon not only to... more
Book review of Gilles Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical & E Kaufman and K Heller, ed., Deleuze and Guattari: New Mappings in Politics. The availability of the translations in Essays Critical and Clinical is a boon not only to aficionados of Deleuze and Guattari studies, but also to readers more generally who seek yet another accessible entry point to Deleuze's thought and philosophy. Moreover, the additional collection of critical studies edited by Eleanor Kaufman and Kevin Jon Heller provides further evidence of
the mini-boom in D&G studies occurring in the latter part of the 1990s.
the mini-boom in D&G studies occurring in the latter part of the 1990s.
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Review of the film by Raoul Ruiz, Le Temps retrouvé (2000)
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During the year preceding his sensational suicide by defenestration on November 4, 1995, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's conversations with his former student and sometimes interlocutor, Claire Parnet (Dialogues [Paris:... more
During the year preceding his sensational suicide by defenestration on
November 4, 1995, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's conversations with his former student and sometimes interlocutor, Claire Parnet (Dialogues [Paris: Flammarion, 1977]), were broadcast on the Arte channel for several months. Filmed in 1988-89 and destined for release only after Deleuze's death, these interviews were instead shown with his permission shortly before his passing. The eight-hour video interchange stands as the primary audio-visual document on the evolution of Deleuze's thought late in his career (see transcript at deleuze.cla.purdue.edu). As the title suggests, the interviews are arranged in alphabetical, thematic order (listed at the end of this review); they involve five different, yet overlapping lines that Deleuze weaves through these discussions.
November 4, 1995, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's conversations with his former student and sometimes interlocutor, Claire Parnet (Dialogues [Paris: Flammarion, 1977]), were broadcast on the Arte channel for several months. Filmed in 1988-89 and destined for release only after Deleuze's death, these interviews were instead shown with his permission shortly before his passing. The eight-hour video interchange stands as the primary audio-visual document on the evolution of Deleuze's thought late in his career (see transcript at deleuze.cla.purdue.edu). As the title suggests, the interviews are arranged in alphabetical, thematic order (listed at the end of this review); they involve five different, yet overlapping lines that Deleuze weaves through these discussions.
Research Interests:
Book review of volume 2 of Deleuze's occasional writing (1975-1995), the companion volume to Desert Islands and Other Texts (1953-1973).
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A book review of Denis Provencher's Queer French, a remarkable work of research in the conjoined domains of French civilization (global and local) and French cultural studies.
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Since the publication of the first of two volumes of Deleuze’s occasional texts L’Île Déserte et autres textes (Paris: Minuit, 2002, translated by Mike Taormina as Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953–1974, New York: Semiotext(e), 2004),... more
Since the publication of the first of two volumes of Deleuze’s occasional
texts L’Île Déserte et autres textes (Paris: Minuit, 2002, translated by
Mike Taormina as Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953–1974, New
York: Semiotext(e), 2004), Deleuze scholars have been treated to a veritable treasure trove of heretofore largely inaccessible texts, and the latest
addition, the publication in 2003 of the second volume, Deux Régimes
de fous (occasional texts from 1975 to 1995), has now been complemented with its translation. At the same time, a new volume has been
added to the Deleuze-Guattari archive: published in 2004 in France as
Les Écrits pour L’Anti-Oedipe and attributed solely to Guattari, The
Anti-Oedipus Papers offers a fascinating inside view of the process of
collaboration between Deleuze and Guattari in developing the work that
would become Capitalism and Schizophrenia
texts L’Île Déserte et autres textes (Paris: Minuit, 2002, translated by
Mike Taormina as Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953–1974, New
York: Semiotext(e), 2004), Deleuze scholars have been treated to a veritable treasure trove of heretofore largely inaccessible texts, and the latest
addition, the publication in 2003 of the second volume, Deux Régimes
de fous (occasional texts from 1975 to 1995), has now been complemented with its translation. At the same time, a new volume has been
added to the Deleuze-Guattari archive: published in 2004 in France as
Les Écrits pour L’Anti-Oedipe and attributed solely to Guattari, The
Anti-Oedipus Papers offers a fascinating inside view of the process of
collaboration between Deleuze and Guattari in developing the work that
would become Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Research Interests:
Book review of Garin Dowd, Abstract Machine: Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari (New York: Rodopi, 2007)
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Review of Kate Griffiths and Andrew Watts. Adapting Nineteenth-Century France. Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio and
Print. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013.
Print. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013.
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Book review of Ronald Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema
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Review of Ian Buchanan, Deleuzism: A Metacommentary (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2002)
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Review of Guy Mermier, France Past and Present (New York: Peter Lang, 2000)
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Review of Brian Massum's Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2002)
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Book review of Dana Polan, _The Sopranos_ (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2009).
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Review of essay collection, Proust in Perspective: Visions and Revisions, (U of Illinois Press, 2002).
Review of the first of two collection of Deleuze's occasional pieces, the 1953-1973 segment, edited by David Lapoujade.
Review of Herman Rapaport's analysis of the state of theory at the turn of the century.
This was an online review for the online journal Postmodern Culture, a huge important initiative in the era well before blogs, podcasts, and other more accessible modes of publication. The texts reviewed are the collection edited by... more
This was an online review for the online journal Postmodern Culture, a huge important initiative in the era well before blogs, podcasts, and other more accessible modes of publication. The texts reviewed are the collection edited by Joseph A. Boone and Michael Cadden, Engendering Men: The Question of Male Feminist Criticism (NYC: Routledge, 1990), and a collection edited by Laura Claridge and Elizabeth Langland, Out of Bounds:: Male Writers and Gender(ed) Criticism (Amherst MA: U of Massachusetts Press, 1990).
In the eight-hour interview with Claire Parnet, L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, the opening segments-"A comme Animal" and "B comme Boire"-offer different, yet complementary discussions of issues related to territorialization and... more
In the eight-hour interview with Claire Parnet, L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, the opening segments-"A comme Animal" and "B comme Boire"-offer different, yet complementary discussions of issues related to territorialization and creativity, with the latter focused on excess and limits of forms of inebriation. Deleuze reflects on the inherent movement towards a limit in any process of sensory selfextension in earlier works, for example, "Porcelain and Volcano" series of Logique du sens and also, with Guattari, in Mille plateaux. There and elsewhere, Deleuze raises the question of how far one can extend one's self in making a Body without Organs. Linked to issues of the event and its ethics, this project of corporeal crossing-friction-fusion is constantly marked by the traits of "caution" (Mille plateaux) and "extreme prudence" ("D comme Désir") that allow one to proceed and yet to return to one's "home" after a hard day of deterritorializing (to paraphrase Manuel DeLanda). In this presentation, after discussing briefly the opening segment "A comme Animal", I then show a large excerpt from "B comme Boire" in order to link Deleuze's perspectives there to broader issues of transversality, resistance, and life.
Research Interests:
In an earlier NCFS talk (2005) on "Boys' Rooms, Spaces of Desire," I considered the generative topic, where do men love, or at least where would men desire to make love, in the nineteenth-century French novel? In that earlier talk, I... more
In an earlier NCFS talk (2005) on "Boys' Rooms, Spaces of Desire," I considered the generative topic, where do men love, or at least where would men desire to make love, in the nineteenth-century French novel? In that earlier talk, I considered spaces of desire from Balzac to Maupassant, briefly studying various sites of potential seduction for young men in their prime. In this talk in the context of "old fogeys," I continue my reflection with a complementary orientation, toward places where the old boys play. I propose to contrast three such fictional spaces of (and for) desire-from La Cousine Bette, Madame Bovary, and Nana. Combined with the earlier study, these novels will help me outline and provide clues about how this locative imaginary developed across the nineteenth century.
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Presented in 2005 at the 19th-Century French studies colloquium, this talk addresses the narrative construction of spaces of masculine desire, inspired by the following questions: where does one love or, at least, where does one desire to... more
Presented in 2005 at the 19th-Century French studies colloquium, this talk addresses the narrative construction of spaces of masculine desire, inspired by the following questions: where does one love or, at least, where does one desire to love, and how, under what conditions? The talk presents examples of "boys' rooms" for love-making from Stendhal to Maupassant, hence spanning the century.
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This talk is an overview of the entire (at least in 1998) set of 10 books by Carlos Castaneda on the teachings of his master don Juan, presented at the International Society of Narrative Literature conference (Northwestern U, April 1998).... more
This talk is an overview of the entire (at least in 1998) set of 10 books by Carlos Castaneda on the teachings of his master don Juan, presented at the International Society of Narrative Literature conference (Northwestern U, April 1998). The angle of approach is to consider the framing devices of each volume, and I consider two textual strategies that adhere to the successive narrative layers of what I imagine as the "narrative onion" of this series of volumes, specifically the conjoined problems of narrative frame and reliability and their relation to the implicit contract between reader and writer.
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This study of mistranslations, misrepresentations and censorship of Guy de Maupassant's corpus of short stories in English translation was included in the 19th Century French Studies Colloquium (Tucson, AZ, 2003). As much as I truly... more
This study of mistranslations, misrepresentations and censorship of Guy de Maupassant's corpus of short stories in English translation was included in the 19th Century French Studies Colloquium (Tucson, AZ, 2003). As much as I truly enjoyed writing this talk, its audience may be quite limited, e.g. to lit scholars who might want to know which stories to avoid since, frankly, Maupassant never wrote them.