Towards a Political Anthropology in the Work of Gilles Deleuze: Psychoanalysis and Anglo-American Literature

337 Pages·2015·1.49 MB·English

by  Rockwell F. Clancy

TOWARDS A POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
IN THE WORK OF GILLES DELEUZE
FIGURES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 13
Editorial Board
PHILIPPE VAN HAUTE, (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
ANDREAS DE BLOCK, (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium)
JOS CORVELEYN, (Catholic University Leuven, Belgium)
MONIQUE DAVID-MÉNARD, (Université Paris VII – Diderot, France)
PAUL MOYAERT, (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium)
VLADIMIR SAFATLE, (University of São Paulo, Brazil)
CHARLES SHEPHERDSON, (State University of New York at Albany, USA)
Advisory Board
TOMAS GEYSKENS, (Leuven, Belgium)
ELISSA MARDER, (Emory University, Atlanta, USA)
CELINE SURPRENANT, (University of Sussex, United Kingdom)
JEAN FLORENCE, (Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium)
PATRICK GUYOMARD, (Université Paris VII – Diderot, France)
ELIZABETH ROTTENBERG, (De Paul University, Chicago, USA)
JEFF BLOECHL, (Boston College, USA)
PATRICK VANDERMEERSCH, (University of Groningen, the Netherlands)
VERONICA VASTERLING, (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
HERMAN WESTERINK, (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
WILFRIED VER EECKE, (Georgetown University, USA)
RUDOLF BERNET, (Catholic University Leuven, Belgium)
ARI HIRVONEN, (University of Helsinki, Finland)
JOHAN VAN DER WALT, (University of Luxemburg, Luxemburg)
STELLA SANDFORD, (Kingston University, London, United Kingdom)
CLAUDIO OLIVEIRA, (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
PAOLA MARRATI, (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA)
ERAN DORFMAN, (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
MARCUS COELEN, (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany)
RODRIGO DE LA FABIÁN, (University Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile, Chili)
RICHARD BOOTHBY, (Loyola University, Maryland, USA)
TOWARDS A POLITICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE WORK OF
GILLES DELEUZE
Psychoanalysis and Anglo-American Literature

Rockwell F. Clancy
In loving memory of John “Mr. John” Makin,
one of the best guys I’ve known.
May this suffice until “The Kampehout Diaries”
matches in the literary genre what “Potverdekke!” is for music…
You’re missed.
© 2015 by Leuven University Press / Universitaire Pers Leuven / Presses Universitaires de Louvain.
Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium)
All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this publication
may be multiplied, saved in an automated datafile or made public in any way whatsoever without
the express prior written consent of the publishers.
ISBN 9789462700116
D/2015/1869/10
NUR: 777
Cover illustration: YuQing Ying, “Barbie on Table”
Cover design: Griet Van Haute
Lay-out: Friedemann BVBA
“The metaphysicians of Tlön do not seek
for the truth or even for verisimilitude,
but rather for the astounding.
They judge that metaphysics
”
is a branch of fantastic literature.
Jorge Luis Borges

(“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.” Labyrinths.
New York: Penguin, 1979. 34.)

“In psycho-analysis nothing is true except the exaggerations.”
Theodor Adorno

(Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life
Trans. E.F.N. Jephcott. New York: Verso, 2002. 49.)

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 11
Abbreviations 13
Preface
From Psychoanalysis and Literature to Political Anthropology 15
Introduction
Deleuze, Politics, and the Problem of Human Nature 17
1. Politics and the Problem of Human Nature: Political Anthropology 17
2. Deleuze and the Problem of Human Nature: Philosophical Anthropology 23
Chapter One
The Metaphysics of Psychoanalysis 33
Introduction: Psychoanalysis as Idealism and D.H. Lawrence 33
1. Philosophy and Literature in Lawrence 35
2. Psychoanalytic Reading in Freud, Bonaparte, and Lacan 37
3. A Note on “Pollyanalytics” and Problem of Critique 40
4. Praxis and Philosophical Anthropology in Marx and Engels 42
5. A Substance Theory of Mind and Theological Motivations in Descartes 44
6. Experiential Unity and Transcendental Subjectivity in Kant 47
7. Spirit as Ground and the Dialectical Method in Hegel 49
8. Marx versus Descartes, Kant, and Hegel 56
9. Lawrence’s Conception of the Unconscious 59
10. L awrence and the Psychoanalytic Tradition: Drive Theories and
Individuation 63
11. Familial Relations, according to Lawrence 66
12. The Individual and Society, according to Lawrence 69
Conclusion 74
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Table of Contents
Chapter Two
The Metaphysics of Classic American Literature 77
Introduction: Language, Literature, and Lawrence 77
1. Classic American Literature and American Identity 78
2. Changing Identity by Changing the Blood 81
3. New Criticism and Reader Response: The Same Old Problem 85
4. Classic American Literature: Conditions Material and Ideal, Body
and Mind 88
5. Spinoza and Lawrence: Parallelism and Classic American Literature 91
6. Individuals, Community, and Sympathy: Lawrence and Spinoza 94
7. Sympathy and Multitude: Anti-Democracy and Fascism 100
Conclusion 102
Chapter Three
Reading Anti-Oedipus from behind with Lawrence 105
Introduction: From a Critique of Psychoanalysis… 105
1. A Note on Metaphysics: The Organic Model 106
2. The Specificity of Schizophrenic Experience 109
3. A Materialist Conception of the Unconscious 116
4. Syntheses of the Unconscious 121
5. Connective Synthesis 124
6. Disjunctive Synthesis 129
7. Conjunctive Synthesis 140
8. Social Machines 148
9. Primitive Territorial Machine 153
10. Barbarian Despotic Machine 162
11. Civilized Capitalist Machine 169
Conclusion 178
Chapter Four
Anglo-American Literature as a Philosophical Concept 181
Introduction: …to the Superiority of Anglo-American Literature 181
1. The Line of Flight: Exiting versus Leaving 184
2. Anglo-American Literature: Individuals and Community 188
3. Tricksters versus Traitors: Imitation versus Becoming 192
4. Hume and the Exteriority of Relations 196
5. Spinoza, Parallelism, and Affects 200
6. Bodies, Events, and the Stoics 204
7. Assemblages and the Political 207
Conclusion 213
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Table of Contents
Chapter Five
The Political Significance of Opinion, Philosophy, and Art 217
Introduction: Opinion as a Problem 217
1. Elements of Opinion 218
2. Development of Opinion in Relation to Chaos: Denial 222
3. Political Significance of Opinion: Creating Consensus 225
4. Elements of Philosophy and Art 234
5. Relation of Philosophy and Art to Chaos: Uneasy Alliance 241
6. Political Significance of Philosophy and Art: Inventing a People,
Making Brains 247
Conclusion 254
Chapter Six
Creating a People to Come 257
Introduction: Liberalism and its Failures 257
1. Inclusive Particularism: The Political Significance of Philosophy and Art 262
2. D.H. Lawrence, Christianity, and Fundamentalism 263
3. The Meaning(s) of Revelation 264
4. Christianity: Aristocratic and Popular 265
5. Selves: Individual and Collective 267
6. People and Power 272
7. T.E. Lawrence, Arabs, and Exclusivism 275
8. The Creation of Shame as an Affect 275
9. The Political Significance of Literature 279
10. Becoming (with but not like) Arab 284
11. Walt Whitman, America, and Nationalism 288
12. The Specificity of American Experience 288
13. An Alliance with Nature as Fragmented Reality 290
14. The Creation of Relations as Camaraderie 293
Conclusion 297
Conclusion
Political Anthropology, Liberalism, and Deleuze 301
Bibliography 309
Index 321
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