The Incomplete Project of Schizoanalysis: Collected Essays on Deleuze and Guattari

by Ian Buchanan

In these 20 essays written over a 20-year period, Buchanan shines a light on the experimental nature of the work of Deleuze and Guattari. He shows it to be constitutively incomplete as their project was an attempt to understand our contemporary situation which is constantly changing and can therefore never be understood in a complete way. Clustered around five main themes - Method, Film, Space, Analysis and Assemblages - Buchanan's book will appeal to experts as well as those new to Deleuze and Guattari working across literary criticism, film studies, cultural studies, political theory and philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, 21st Century

352 pages, Hardcover

Published September 24, 2021

About the author

Born in rural Western Australia, Buchanan grew up in the suburbs of Perth. He did his BA and PhD in the English and Comparative Literature program at Murdoch University, graduating in 1995. His PhD dissertation, entitled, "Heterology: Towards a Transcendental Empiricist Approach to Cultural Studies" attempted to fuse the work of de Certeau and Deleuze for the purposes of doing cultural analysis

Reviews

[CharlesS · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't claim to have fully read this remarkable collection because I take it as yet another important resource on Deleuze and Guattari that will continue yield rich insights. Buchanan seeks to move forward in completing what he insists is D&G's *incomplete* schizoanalytic project. I have always thought that this was a given, the incompletion aspect, especially if one views Anti-Oedipus as the opening plateaus of the many more to come in the following volume. But, Buchanan really provides extremely solid grounding for his arguments, well informed with references to an impressive array of critics. I particularly enjoyed the volume's final essay, "The Self-Help Assemblage", and ch. 14 on 'Life', is quite important. Above all, Buchanan is a very reflective thinker, meaning he reflects on not just the primary texts on which he focuses, but also on links between these and related and seemingly unrelated texts as well, thereby making useful links at every opportunity.

[Barnaby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fine collection of essays on Deleuze and Guattari by one of the most lucid writers in the field. Whilst many critics dealing with the work of D&G get bogged down in pedantic over-readings of terminology or branch off into odd digressions, Ian Buchanan offers an accessible and yet nuanced discussion of schizoanalysis, and related elements, such as the synthetic (or machinic) process of desire, the disappearance of boredom, and space encountering non-place. Each chapter is self-contained, yet they unite into a coherent whole, which is rare for such collections. Definitely one for anyone interested in this area to have on the shelf.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buchanan's work is essential for those who are navigating the difficult philosophical waters of Deleuze and Guattari. Developed some 50 years ago, these philosopers have produced exciting and fresh thought, using novel conceptual thoughts and ideas, to uproot many of the conventions of thought itself. In this sense, their philosophy is unlike any other and considered well ahead for its time. Unfortunately, it is often considered frustrating and obscure to newcomers and students of philosophy. Buchanan's life work is the answer to this. His collection of works, which spands over 20 years, brings a guiding light to the seemingly impenetrable modes of such philosophical thought. He does so with precision, clarity and a confidence that stems from a close engagment and deep reading with the text. This book and his works overall are an essential contribution in scholarship and a must for those in the "Explain Deleuze to me, but dont dumb it down..." camp.

[Rob Luzecky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spinoza was perhaps the first to point out that beauty (and excellence) of existent entities is determined, in part, through reference to their rarity. Indeed—in the second volume of Capitalism and Schizophrenia—Deleuze and Guattari employ a modified version of this proposition to suggest that a morsel of the beauty of In Search of Lost Time emerges from the relatively rare instances in which the narrator follows in Swann’s footsteps (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, 271). Ian Buchanan’s The Incomplete Project of Schizoanalysis is exceeding beautiful because accomplishes that most rare of feats for a collection of papers: in addition to presenting a wonderfully detailed elaboration of some the most complex concepts found in Deleuze and Guattari's project of schizoanalysis, Buchanan gives the reader a timely meditation on some of the most important events of our tumultuous age.

This book is essential reading for scholars and students of Deleuze's and Guattari's philosophy, the humanities in general, as well as any who are interested in some of the most important ideas of our time.