In May 1968, Gilles Deleuze was an established philosopher teaching at the innovative Vincennes University, just outside of Paris. Felix Guattari was a political militant and the director of an unusual psychiatric clinic at La Borde. Their meeting was quite unlikely, yet the two were introduced in an arranged encounter of epic consequence. From that moment on, Deleuze and Guattari engaged in a surprising, productive partnership, collaborating on several groundbreaking works, including Anti-Oedipus, What Is Philosophy? and A Thousand Plateaus. Francois Dosse, a prominent French intellectual known for his work on the Annales School, structuralism, and biographies of the pivotal intellectuals Paul Ricoeur, Pierre Chaunu, and Michel de Certeau, examines the prolific if improbable relationship between two men of distinct and differing sensibilities. Drawing on unpublished archives and hundreds of personal interviews, Dosse elucidates a collaboration that lasted more than two decades, underscoring the role that family and history--particularly the turbulent time of May 1968--play in their monumental work.
He also takes the measure of Deleuze and Guattari's posthumous fortunes and the impact of their thought on intellectual, academic, and professional circles.
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari : Intersecting Lives
Description
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction: Betwixt or Between Part I. Folds: Parallel Biographies 1. Felix Guattari: The Psychopolitical Itinerary, 1930-1964 2. La Borde: Between Myth and Reality 3. Daily Life at La Borde 4. Testing Critical Research Empirically 5. Gilles Deleuze: The Hero's Brother 6. The Art of the Portrait 7. Nietzsche, Bergson, Spinoza: A Trio for a Vitalist Philosophy 8. An Ontology of Difference 9. The Founding Rupture: May 1968 Part II. Unfolding: Intersecting Lives 10. "Psychoanalysm" Under Attack 11. Anti-Oedipus 12. Machine Against Structure 13. "Minor" Literature as Seen by Deleuze and Guattari 14. A Thousand Plateaus : A Geophilosophy of Politics 15. The CERFI at Work 16. The "Molecular Revolution": Italy, Germany, France 17. Deleuze and Foucault: A Philosophical Friendship 18. An Alternative to Psychiatry? 19. Deleuze at Vincennes 20. The Year of Combat: 1977 Part III. Surplices: 1980-2007 21. Guattari Between Culture and Ecology 22. Deleuze Goes to the Movies 23. Guattari and Aesthetics: Consolation During the Winter Years 24. Deleuze Dialogues with Creation 25. An Artist Philosophy 26. Winning Over the West 27. Around the World 28. Two Deaths 29. Their Work at Work 30. Conclusion Notes Index
Author Description
Francois Dosse is a professor at the IUFM Creteil, the Paris Institute for Political Studies, and the Center for Cultural History, University of Versailles/Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. He has published several important books on intellectual history, including History of Structuralism: The Rising Sign, 1945-1966 and History of Structuralism: The Sign Sets, 1967-Present. Deborah Glassman is the author of several works on literature, education, and international development and the translator of Dosse's two books on structuralism.