Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts

Key Concepts

by Charles J. Stivale

Deleuze's concepts - such as assemblage, the fold, difference and repetition, cinema and desire - are key to understanding his philosophical approach: they work to unsettle particular bodies of knowledge, to open them up and link them to other concepts within and outside that body of knowledge. The short and accessible chapters in this book each focus on a single concept, offering a definition and showing what the concept does. The contributors also consider how the concepts are engaged, intersect, and link, and how they may deviate from other areas of postmodern thought. Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts is aimed at a readership new to Deleuze both from within philosophy and outside the discipline. Contributors include Christa Albrecht-Crane, Ronald Bogue, Felicity J. Colman, Tom Conley, Gregory Flaxman, Eugene W. Holland, Karen Houle, Gregg Lambert, Melissa McMahon, Judith L. Poxon, Gregory Seigworth, Jennifer Daryl Slack, Daniel W. Smith, Patty Sotirin, Charles J. Stivale, Kenneth Surin, James Williams, and J. Macgregor Wise.

Genres: Philosophy

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2002

About the author

Distinguished Professor Emeritus, French, Wayne State University, Detroit, 1990-2019. Currently residing in Novi, MI, teaching yoga and translating, co-director of the Deleuze Seminars archive, deleuze.cla.purdue.edu.

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 4 out of 5]

251114: i have read some books on deleuze, some by deleuze, some by deleuze and guattari- and thus the crowded many within the two. some works were then beyond me- and may remain so now. but all of them inspire a second look: so does this work. as a series of essays, some are very good, some are less. the simplest is to recount titles for the reader to directly read, not ignoring, only momentarily eliding, those topics not immediately useful:

part one, philosophies: 1) force, 2) expression, 3) difference, repetition, 4) desire. part two, encounters: 5) sense, series, 6) assemblage, 7) micro-politics, 8) becoming-woman, 9) the minor, 10) style, stutter, 11) logic of sensation, 12) cinema: movement-image-recognition-time. part three, folds: 13) from affection to soul, 14) folds and folding, 15) critical, clinical...

more
010220: Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction
Deleuze
Nietzsche and Philosophy
What Is Philosophy?
Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts
Bergsonism
Bergson-Deleuze Encounters: Transcendental Experience and the Thought of the Virtual
Gilles Deleuze: Cinema and Philosophy
Deleuze on Cinema

[Charles]

The updated (and enhanced) second edition.

[Kamil Muhammad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the best entry to Deleuze. To be honest, I don't know what is. Deleuze's idea seems to be the kind that needs to be approached through other means, or stories. Mine was my Urban Design Theory professor's "complex assemblage system" that introduced me to Deleuze's assemblage theory, and it just sort of rolled on from there - from one curiosity to another. Once you are at this point, then this book becomes indispensable. You can tell that each academic writes each chapter with a lot of effort to make Deleuze's concepts easier to understand without reducing their complex nuances. My only suggestion is prepare different colour pens as your margin-scribble of texts and diagrams will only make the book look better!

[Gary Norris · Rating 4 out of 5]

approaching Deleuze, this is the best book of its kind out there right now. I return to it often.

[Charles]

This is the first edition (there is an updated second, 2011)

[Alyosha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like all primers, this book was interesting but made the philosopher's thought seem far too simple to grasp. Now I need to go read some actual Deleuze.