Wednesday, March 02, 2005
(12:00 AM) | Anonymous:
Wednesday Book Recommendation: Deleuzian Hackery.
Adam apparently gave me the task for this week, which is fine because I like to see my name in print.This is the book that made Deleuze famous in the English speaking world. I'm not going to tell you the same bull-shit about Deleuze's lack of good scholarship that you are apt to hear from other sources. Rather, I think this book helps to clarify Nietzsche's project and is vital towards understanding Deleuze's later works with Guattari. Deleuze explores the will to power, exlaining why it is not a facisit concept, but rather an attempt to understand the smooth plane of existence. His work with the eternal return is a starting point for understanding the ethical system Deleuze hopes for that goes beyond Kantian ethics
The only thing I don't like about this book is this cover. The edition I found was printed in Britain and had the Athlone-style white square above red square. I don't know why, but I just love those covers.
This book is quite good. Though if you are a beginner to either Deleuze or Foucault I wouldn't recommend this as a text to help orientate you. It is a rather good book, much like his work on Nietzsche in that it thinks through Foucault's concepts while continuing to build his own. I put these two texts together because I think the Foucault work extends and improves upon concepts discussed in the Nietzsche book, mainly in regard to the concept of force developed in the Nietzsche book. In the Foucault book Deleuze explains this concept while being more attuned to political problems of resistance.
Every theologian and philosopher of religion needs to read this book. I think Goodchild's approach to religion is far superior to the religion without religion school of Caputo (though I still think this has value), the Hauerwas approach, and the whatever it is that Radical Orthodoxy does. If we are going to deal with Capitalism, we are going to deal with religion, and this book helps us to do that. Goodchild's approach can be described as generally Deleuzian, but he uses everyone from Diogenes to Adorno to examine his thesis. Which leads t the only complaint I have about this book, namely that Goodchild's main thesis tends to be obscured because he spends much of his time in teaching mode concerning the works of everyone from Diogenes to Adorno.
I think I have sufficiently made my mark as a Deleuzian hack.
