Towards a Political Anthropology in the Work of Gilles Deleuze

This work explores the significance of two recurring themes in the thought of Gilles Deleuze: his critique of psychoanalysis and praise for Anglo-American literature. Tracing the overlooked influence of English writer D.H. Lawrence on Deleuze, Rockwell Clancy shows how these themes ultimately bear on two competing 'political anthropologies', conceptions of the political and the respective accounts of philosophical anthropology on which they are based. Contrary to the mainstream of both Deleuze studies and contemporary political thought, Clancy argues that the major contemporary importance of Deleuze’s thought consists in the way he grounds his analyses of the political on accounts of philosophical anthropology, helping to make sense of the contemporary backlash against inclusive liberal values evident in forms of political conservatism and religious fundamentalism. 

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Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

Preface
From Psychoanalysis and Literature to Political Anthropology

Introduction
Deleuze, Politics, and the Problem of Human Nature
1. Politics and the Problem of Human Nature: Political Anthropology
2. Deleuze and the Problem of Human Nature: Philosophical Anthropology

Chapter One
The Metaphysics of Psychoanalysis
Introduction: Psychoanalysis as Idealism and D.H. Lawrence
1. Philosophy and Literature in Lawrence
2. Psychoanalytic Reading in Freud, Bonaparte, and Lacan
3. A Note on “Pollyanalytics” and Problem of Critique
4. Praxis and Philosophical Anthropology in Marx and Engels
5. A Substance Theory of Mind and Theological Motivations in Descartes
6. Experiential Unity and Transcendental Subjectivity in Kant
7. Spirit as Ground and the Dialectical Method in Hegel
8. Marx versus Descartes, Kant, and Hegel
9. Lawrence’s Conception of the Unconscious
10. Lawrence and the Psychoanalytic Tradition: Drive Theories and Individuation
11. Familial Relations, according to Lawrence
12. The Individual and Society, according to Lawrence
Conclusion

Chapter Two
The Metaphysics of Classic American Literature
Introduction: Language, Literature, and Lawrence
1. Classic American Literature and American Identity
2. Changing Identity by Changing the Blood
3. New Criticism and Reader Response: The Same Old Problem
4. Classic American Literature: Conditions Material and Ideal, Body and Mind
5. Spinoza and Lawrence: Parallelism and Classic American Literature
6. Individuals, Community, and Sympathy: Lawrence and Spinoza
7. Sympathy and Multitude: Anti-Democracy and Fascism
Conclusion

Chapter Three
Reading Anti-Oedipus from behind with Lawrence 
Introduction: From a Critique of Psychoanalysis…
1. A Note on Metaphysics: The Organic Model
2. The Specificity of Schizophrenic Experience
3. A Materialist Conception of the Unconscious
4. Syntheses of the Unconscious
5. Connective Synthesis
6. Disjunctive Synthesis
7. Conjunctive Synthesis
8. Social Machines
9. Primitive Territorial Machine
10. Barbarian Despotic Machine
11. Civilized Capitalist Machine
Conclusion

Chapter Four
Anglo-American Literature as a Philosophical Concept
Introduction: …to the Superiority of Anglo-American Literature
1. The Line of Flight: Exiting versus Leaving
2. Anglo-American Literature: Individuals and Community
3. Tricksters versus Traitors: Imitation versus Becoming
4. Hume and the Exteriority of Relations
5. Spinoza, Parallelism, and Affects
6. Bodies, Events, and the Stoics
7. Assemblages and the Political
Conclusion

Chapter Five
The Political Significance of Opinion, Philosophy, and Art 
Introduction: Opinion as a Problem
1. Elements of Opinion
2. Development of Opinion in Relation to Chaos: Denial
3. Political Significance of Opinion: Creating Consensus
4. Elements of Philosophy and Art
5. Relation of Philosophy and Art to Chaos: Uneasy Alliance
6. Political Significance of Philosophy and Art: Inventing a People, Making Brains
Conclusion

Chapter Six
Creating a People to Come
Introduction: Liberalism and its Failures
1. Inclusive Particularism: THe Political Significance of Philosophy and Art
2. D.H. Lawrence, Christianity, and Fundamentalism
3. The Meaning(s) of Revelation
4. Christianity: Aristocratic and Popular
5. Selves: Individual and Collective
6. People and Power
7. T.E. Lawrence, Arabs, and Exclusivism
8. The Creation of Shame as an Affect
9. The Political Significance of Literature
10. Becoming (with but not like) Arab
11. Walt Whitman, America, and Nationalism
12. The Specificity of American Experience
13. An Alliance with Nature as Fragmented Reality
14. The Creation of Relations as Camaraderie
Conclusion

Conclusion
Political Anthropology, Liberalism, and Deleuze

Bibliography

Index

Format: Monograph - ebook

ISBN: 9789461661715

Publication: February 27, 2015

Series: Figures of the Unconscious 13

Languages: English

Rockwell F. Clancy is a lecturer in the Humanities and Social Sciences Education Program at the University of Michigan-;Shanghai Jiao Tong Joint Institute, Shanghai, China.

This is an ambitious book that makes significant contributions to Deleuze studies. Clancy’s advocacy of a Deleuzian political anthropology offers a provocative alternative to previous accounts of Deleuze’s political philosophy, especially in its valorization of the arts as primary forces in the creation of a viable collectivity. Clancy’s exposition of Lawrence’s critical works, especially his books on psychoanalysis, brings to the fore texts that have been ignored by Deleuze scholars, and the parallels he draws between Lawrence and Deleuze/Guattari are striking. Readers will have to decide for themselves to what extent the parallels are signs of Lawrence’s influence on his successors or a mere confluence of interests. There is no doubt that Lawrence is the primary source of Deleuze’s understanding of Anglo-American literature in general and Whitman in particular. But one might well argue that Deleuze and Guattari developed their critique of psychoanalysis independently of Lawrence and simply saw in him a welcome ally in their struggle against the pieties of the Oedipus complex. Whether the Lawrence-Deleuze/Guattari connection constitutes influence or a confluence of interest, however, is of little moment. What counts is the connection itself, which in Clancy’s treatment gives rise to an original and compelling reading of Deleuze and Guattari, one that deserves the serious attention of everyone in the field.
Ronald Bogue, Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy - Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française, Vol XXVI, No 1 (2018) pp 134-137

  Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy - Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française