Containing over 750 in-depth entries, this is the most wide-ranging and up-to-date dictionary of critical theory available. It covers the whole range of critical theory, including the Frankfurt school, cultural materialism, cultural studies, gender studies, film studies, literary theory, hermeneutics, historical materialism, internet studies, and sociopolitical critical theory. Entries clearly explain even the most complex of theoretical discourses, such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, structuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism. There are biographies of important figures in the field, with feature entries for those who (...) have heavily influenced areas of the discipline, e.g. Deleuze. -/- Entries are fully cross-referenced and contain further reading where appropriate. To provide extra information this edition features an appendix of recommended web links, which are accessible via the Dictionary of Critical Theory companion website, where they are also checked regularly and kept up to date. -/- Covering all aspects of the subject from globalization and race studies, to queer theory and feminism, this multidisciplinary A-Z is essential for students of literary and cultural studies and is useful for anyone studying a humanity subject requiring a knowledge of theory. (shrink)

Schizoanalysis is Deleuze and Guattari's fusion of psychoanalytic-inspired theories of the self, the libido and desire with Marx-inspired theories of the economy, history and society. Schizoanalysis holds that art's function is both political and aesthetic - it changes perception. If one cannot change perception, then, one cannot change anything politically. This is why Deleuze and Guattari always insist that the artists operate at the level of the real (not the imaginary or the symbolic). Ultimately, they argue, there is no necessary (...) distinction to be made between aesthetics and politics. One is simply the flipside of the other because both concern the formation and transformation of social and cultural norms. Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Visual Art explores how every artist, good or bad, contributes to the structure and nature of society because their work either reinforces social norms, or challenges them. On this view of things, we are all artists, we all have the potential to exercise what might be called a 'aesthetico-political function' and change the world around us; or, just as easily, we can dwell like assassins, and not only let the status quo endure but fight to preserve it as though it were freedom itself. (shrink)

What do we mean when we talk of an 'assemblage' in contemporary theory? Any and every thing, or more precisely, any and every kind of collection of things, could now be called an assemblage. The constant and seemingly limitless expansion of the term's range of applications begs the question, if any and every kind of collection of things is an assemblage, then what advantage is there is in using this term and not some other term, or indeed no term at (...) all? What makes an assemblage an assemblage, and not some other kind of collection of things? This book advances beyond this impasse and offers practical help in thinking about and using assemblage theory for contemporary cultural and social research, in order to: - Answer the question: what is assemblage theory? - Explain why assemblage theory is necessary - Provide clear instructions on how to use assemblage theory The first book of it's kind, Ian Buchanan's guide maps the beginnings of a brand new field within the humanities. (shrink)

Answers the questions “How should we read Deleuze?” and “How should we read with Deleuze?” by showing us how his philosophy works.

The conviction that Gilles Deleuze is doing something radical in his work has been accompanied by a corresponding anxiety as to how to read it. In this rigorous and lucid work, Ian Buchanan takes up the challenge by answering the following questions: How should we read Deleuze? How should we read _with_ Deleuze? To show us how Deleuze’s philosophy works, Buchanan begins with Melville’s notion that “a great book is always the inverse of another book that could only (...) be written in the soul, with silence and blood.” Buchanan demonstrates that the figure of two books—one written in ink and the other written in blood—lies at the center of Deleuze’s hermeneutics and that a special relation must be established in order to read the second book from the first. This relation is Deleuzism. By explicating elemental concepts in Deleuze—desire, flow, the nomad—Buchanan finds that, despite Deleuze’s self-declared moratorium on dialectics, he was in several important respects a dialectician. In essays that address the “prehistory” of Deleuze’s philosophy, his methodology, and the utopic dimensions of his thought, Buchanan extracts an apparatus of social critique that arises from the philosopher’s utopian impulse. _Deleuzism_ is a work that will engage all those with an interest in the twentieth-century’s most original philosopher. (shrink)

For the Intentionalist, utterance content is wholly determined by a speaker’s meaning-intentions; the sentence uttered serves merely to facilitate the audience’s recovering these intentions. We argue that Intentionalists ought to be Particularists, holding that the only “principles” of meaning recovery needed are those governing inferences to the best explanation; “principles” that are both defeasible and, in a sense to be elaborated, variable. We discuss some ways in which some theorists have erred in trying to tame the “wild west” of pragmatics (...) and context-sensitivity -- including recent work that makes essential appeal to the information structure of a discourse -- and in so doing, offer a general recipe for defending the Particularist picture of utterance content and its recovery that we favor. (shrink)

You never reach the Body without Organs, you can't reach it, you are forever attaining it, it is a limit. People ask, So what is this BwO? - But you're already on it, scurrying like vermin, grouping like a blind person, or running like a lunatic: desert traveller and nomad of the steppes. On it we sleep, live our waking lives, fight - fight and are fought - seek our place, experience untold happiness and fabulous defeats; on it we penetrate (...) and are penetrated; on it we love. (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 150). (shrink)

Drawing out the 'unwritten' book on music from which Deleuze left many clues, but no manuscript, the essays in this volume explore what he said and thought about music and how music informed his thinking.

In performing an act of assertion we are sometimes responsible for more than the content of the literal meaning of the words we have used, sometimes less. A recently popular research program seeks to explain certain of the commitments we make in speech in terms of responsiveness to the conversational subject matter. We raise some issues for this view with the aim of providing a more general account of linguistic commitment: one that is grounded in a more general action‐theoretic notion (...) of responsibility. (shrink)

This paper argues that it is problematic for the future of Deleuze studies that it is difficult if not impossible to answer the question ‘what is the right thing to do?’ from a Deleuzian perspective. It then argues that one of the key reasons Deleuze studies has made limited progress in this area is its over-emphasis on desire and the corresponding tendency to extrapolate ‘ought’ from ‘is’, which as Hume showed is a category mistake. It proposes that to develop a (...) workable ethical discourse from Deleuze's work we need to rethink how we read his work and approach it afresh. (shrink)

Michel Foucault’s suggestion that this century would become known as “Deleuzian” was considered by Gilles Deleuze himself to be a joke “meant to make people who like us laugh, and make everyone else livid.” Whether serious or not, Foucault’s prediction has had enough of an impact to raise concern about the potential “deification” of this enormously influential French philosopher. Seeking to counter such tendencies toward hagiography—not unknown, particularly since Deleuze’s death—Ian Buchanan has assembled a collection of essays that constitute (...) a critical and focused engagement with Deleuze and his work. Originally published as a special issue of _South Atlantic Quarterly_, this volume includes essays from some of the most prominent American, Australian, British, and French scholars and translators of Deleuze’s writing. These essays, ranging from film, television, art, and literature to philosophy, psychoanalysis, geology, and cultural studies, reflect the broad interests of Deleuze himself. Providing both an introduction and critique of Deleuze, this volume will engage those readers interested in literary and cultural theory, philosophy, and the future of those areas of study in which Deleuze worked. _Contributors_. Ronald Bogue, Ian Buchanan, André Pierre Colombat, Tom Conley, Manuel DeLanda, Tessa Dwyer, Jerry Aline Flieger, Eugene Holland, Fredric Jameson, Jean-Clet Martin, John Mullarkey, D. N. Rodowick, Horst Ruthrof, Charles J. Stivale. (shrink)

This volume in the Deleuze Connections series debates and extends Deleuze's political thought through engagement with contemporary political events and concepts. Against recent critique of Deleuze as a non-political thinker, this book explores the specific innovations and interventions that Deleuze's profoundly political concepts bring to political thought and practice. The contributors use Deleuze's dynamic theoretical apparatus to engage with contemporary political problems, themes and possibilities, including micropolitics, cynicism, war, democracy, ethnicity, friendship, revolution, power, fascism, militancy, and fabulation.

In the development of health promotion theory to date insufficient attention has been paid to the question ‘What is the end to which health promotion is directed?’ A distinction can be made between purpose (end) and process (means to end) and if no clear account of purpose exists to illuminate how process contributions relate to its achievement, then health promotion's claim to be a practical discipline is weak. Although ‘well-being’ is frequently cited as the essence of health promotion, a view (...) of ‘well-being’ which goes much beyond the intuitive has yet to emerge. Retention of ‘well-being’ as purpose requires a specific account which allows health promotion's claim to practicality to be clearly demonstrated. In discussing the form such an account would need to take, purely hedonistic conceptions of ‘well-being’ are discounted and the development of an ‘objective’ account, in which ‘capacity for self direction’ would form the key focus, is suggested. (shrink)

Certeau is often considered to be the theorist of everyday life par excellence. This book provides an unrivalled critical introduction to Certeau's work and influence and looks at his key ideas and asks how should we try to understand him in relation to theories of modern culture and society. Ian Buchanan demonstrates how Certeau was influenced by Lacan, Merleau-Ponty and Greimas and the meaning of Certeau's notions of `strategy', `tactics', `place' and `space' are clearly described. The book argues that (...) Certeau died before developing the full import of his work for the study of culture and convincingly, it tries to complete or imagine the directions that Certeau's work would have taken, had he lived. Authoritative, penetrating and filled with insight, the book will be of major interest to students of sociology and cultural studies. (shrink)

Human rights are a central part of a social worker's value base in contemporary practice, but the structures by which social work services are delivered can adversely affect practitioners? abilities to uphold service user rights. This article describes the organizational development of social work services in England and the evolution of a rights focus for the practice of social work. It uses two cases, participation by children and young people looked after by the local authority and parents with learning difficulties, (...) to determine what prevents the delivery of rights at practice level. We argue that the structures which are the product of historical development prevent workers delivering a service that is anti-oppressive and grounded in a rights-based approach to practice. This suggests that the recent changed arrangements for the delivery of social work offer the opportunity to address human rights within practice and reinvigorate the profession. The division of the profession between children's trusts and adult social services within separate local authority departments or care trusts should make dialogue between specialist social workers, which has been suppressed by internal structures, possible. Such a dialogue could contribute to saving the profession from the disintegration that its division threatens, while advancing the human rights agenda. (shrink)

French philosopher Michel de Certeau wrote about seventeenth-century mysticism, religion and pluralism, architecture, everyday life, and the history of anthropology. But because critics of his works have tended to fragment it into hermetic compartments, dealing only with what is relevant to their own fields, the expansiveness of his ouevre has suffered damaging distortions in the secondary literature. This special issue of _South Atlantic Quarterly_ provides the first comprehensive view of his complete work, with contributors evaluating his weaknesses as well as (...) his strengths. With articles that engage directly—as well as theoretically—with de Certeau, this collection corrects a long-standing imbalance in the criticism by covering works from two periods about which little is known in anglophone circles: his early books on religious history and his midlife histories of mysticism and possession. It also includes critiques from queer theory and feminist theory, as well as comparative readings that assess de Certeau alongside his famous contemporary, Michel Foucault. With articles by an international array of scholars who address both the secular and the religious thinker, this special issue is the most definitive study to date of this important twentieth-century thinker. _Contributors. _Jeremy Ahearne, Frederick C. Bauerschmidt, Ian Buchanan, Philippe Carrard, Claire Colebrook, Tom Conley, Verena Andermatt Conley, Catherine Driscoll, Carla Freccero, John Frow, Richard Terdiman, Timothy Tomasik, Marie-Claire Vallois, Graham Ward. (shrink)

Like the concept of the assemblage, the body without organs is much written about, but unlike the assemblage there are no specific schools of thought associated with the body without organs, much less any agreed definitions. As such, it tends to be used in a very vague manner, with most accounts of it ignoring its practical dimension and instead focusing on its aesthetic (Artaud) and philosophical (Spinoza) origins. However, Deleuze quite explicitly positions the assemblage as a contribution to an understanding (...) of behaviour, so the purely philosophical accounts of the body without organs that give no account of how it can be used analytically are not helpful in my view. I demonstrate that the practical conception of the body without organs is an effective way of understanding the concept. I use the example of George Mallory’s attempt to climb Everest to illustrate this point. I argue that if we focus only on the symbolic attainment of being the first person to climb the world’s tallest mountain and consign the actual act of climbing to the realm of mere entry price, then we effectively destroy the assemblage by rendering it teleological. Now, one might think that this means one should balance the equation by focusing on the bodily dimension of the climb, and certainly that is the direction we need to take, but to do that we need to conceive of a space where that physical dimension can be registered in something other than purely biological terms. If, as Spinoza and after him Deleuze have argued, we do not know what a body can do, it is because we do not have the conceptual means of capturing and expressing its capabilities. We can record its achievements, but we cannot map its capabilities because the body seems always to be capable of doing more than anyone thought possible. Until 1953 when Hillary and Norgay reached the peak of Everest climbing Everest was generally regarded as impossible. A view that was reinforced by the dozen or so failed attempts, not to mention the many deaths occasioned by those attempts, that preceded Hillary and Norgay’ success. This is why Mallory’s insouciance in 1923 was so captivating. His answer ‘because it’s there’ shrugged off the one thing that was standing in the way of the conquest of the peak, the conviction that it was impossible. It also explains why his answer passed into history. (shrink)

This volume joins the pragmatic philosophy of Deleuze to current affairs. The twelve new essays in this volume use a contemporary context to think through and with Deleuze. Engaging the here and now, the contributors use the Deleuzian theoretical apparatus to think about issues such as military activity in the Middle East, refugees, terrorism, information and communication, and the State. The book is aimed both at specialists of Deleuze and those who are unfamiliar with his work but who are interested (...) in current affairs. Incorporating political theory and philosophy, culture studies, sociology, international studies, and Middle Eastern studies, the book is designed to appeal to a wide audience. (shrink)

The subject of this book is moral change, including moral progress and regression. The intention is to use the best thinking about the evolution of morality and the best available social science research to determine the possibilities for progressive change in human moralities by examining important morally progressive changes that have already occurred, in order to determine the social conditions that are conducive to moral progress.

Propositions are the things we believe, intend, desire, and so on, but discussions are often less precise than they could be and an important driver of this deficiency has been a focus on the objects but a neglect of the attitudinal relations we bear to them. In what follows, we will offer some thoughts on what it means for a proposition to be the object of an attitude and we will argue that an important part of the story lies with (...) the attitude relations rather than the propositions. As we will see there are infinitely many relations we might bear to a proposition, but the propositional attitude relations are special amongst them. Accounting for what makes them special will be an important component in the discussion that follows. We will argue that once one appreciates certain facts about propositional attitude relations, various claims that metaphysicians often make regarding propositions themselves begin to look undermotivated. In fact, many views on the metaphysical nature of propositions come to look like plausible candidates for being that to which our propositional attitudes relate us. As will emerge, we will see that the principle role of propositions in the theory of mind is simply to keep track of how our attitudinal states represent things as being. But, we argue, in order to do this work, very few constraints must be placed on the nature of propositions themselves. In particular, contra much of the recent work on the metaphysics of propositions, they need not represent nor must they be structured. In light of these observations, we conclude by sketching our own favored minimalist view of propositions. (shrink)

This important study, the first book-length treatment of an increasingly crucial topic, treats the moral issues of secession at two levels. At the practical level, Professor Buchanan develops a coherent theory of the conditions under which secession is morally justifiable. He then applies it to historical and contemporary examples, including the U.S. Civil War and more recent events in Bangladesh, Katanga, and Biafra, the Baltic states, South Africa, and Quebec. This is the first systematic account of the conditions and (...) terms that justify secession from a political union.But Buchanan also locates this account of the right to secede in the broader context of contemporary political thought, introducing readers to influential accounts of political society such as contractarianism and communitarianism, and showing how the possibility of secession fits into a more complete understanding of political community and political obligation.At both levels this is an important book. It will interest not just political and social theorists but any reader concerned with one of the most momentous issues of our day: the future of troubled political federations and other states under conditions of ethnic and cultural pluralism. (shrink)

Jakob von Uexküll's theories of life -- Biography and historical background -- Nature's conformity with plan -- Umweltforschung -- Biosemiotics -- Concluding remarks -- Marking a path into the environments of animals -- The essential approach to the organism -- Heidegger and the biologists -- Paths to the world -- Disruptive behavior : Heidegger and the captivated animal -- The worldless stone -- The poor animal -- For example, three bees and a lark -- Animal morphology -- A shocking wealth (...) -- A fine line in the rupture of time -- An affected body -- The theme of the animal melody : Merleau-Ponty and the umwelt -- The structure of behavior -- A pure wake, a quiet force -- A leaf of being -- Interanimality -- The-animal-stalks-at-five-oclock : Deleuze's affection for Uexküll -- Problematic organisms -- Uexküll's ethology of affects -- The body without organs, the embryonic egg, and prebiotic soup -- Nature's refrain sung across milieus and territories -- The animal stalks. (shrink)

Tradition has it that, although we experience darkness, we can neither hear nor hallucinate silence. At most, we hear that it is silent, in virtue of lacking auditory experience. This cognitive view is at odds with our ordinary thought and talk. Yet it is not easy to vouchsafe the perception of silence: Sorensen‘s recent account entails the implausible claim that the permanently and profoundly deaf are perpetually hallucinating silence. To better defend the view that we can genuinely hear and hallucinate (...) silence, we must reject the austere picture of conscious experience which underpins the cognitive theory. According to that picture, conscious experience is a simple relation between subjects and objects. In the absence of an object, there is no relation, and so no experience. By enriching this picture, room can be found for the experience of silence. I explore this idea in two phases. First, I defend the thought that we can hear and hallucinate certain forms of silence, such as pauses, in virtue of experiencing contrastive sounds. Second, I draw on Moore‘s analysis of sensation to suggest that simply experiencing silence is a special form of objectless consciousness. I offer two ways of fleshing out this idea. According to the first, auditory experience possesses a temporal field within which the absence of sounds can be perceived. According to the second, purely Moorean account, it is our capacity to listen in the absence of sounds that underlies the phenomenon of experiencing silence. (shrink)

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