Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus have been associated with the worst excesses of so-called ‘postmodern philosophy’. This course aims to counteract such interpretations by offering a careful reading of both texts, with the hope of showing their importance for considerations of politics, subjectivity, society, and revolutionary possibilities, through examinations of key concepts such as schizoanalysis, desiring-machines, becoming, the body without organs, strata, the war machine, and micropolitics. We will carefully consider both books in detail, taking into account their contexts, the trajectories of their authors, and relations to other important traditions, particularly psychoanalysis and marxism, and suggest that they offer key insights into the possibility and nature of ethical life.
prior reading:
a. for newcomers: the first two interviews in Gilles Deleuze Negotiations, on Capitalism and Schizophrenia
b. for the brave souls: the first chapter of Deleuze and Guattari Anti-Oedipus
c. for those who have read some of these books: "The War Machine" in Deleuze and Guattari A Thousand Plateaus, and/or "Savages, Barbarians, Civilised men" in Deleuze and Guattari Anti-Oedipus
d. for those interested in psychoanalysis: "One or many wolves?" in A Thousand Plateaus