A Politics of Things? Deleuze and the New Materialism. Issue 4 (November 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Schleusener, Simon
• Is Part Of: Deleuze and Guattari studies. Volume 15:Issue 4(2021)
• Page Start: 523
• Page End: 542
• Publication Date: 2021-11
• Subjects: Deleuze -- new materialism -- Marxism -- politics -- assemblage -- social ontology; Philosophy, French -- 20th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Criticism and interpretation -- Periodicals; 194
• DOI: 10.3366/dlgs.2021.0456
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2398-9777

Abstract

Abstract : Concentrating on the way in which new materialist authors like Jane Bennett have read and appropriated the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, this essay has two major objectives: first, it aims to point out the shortcomings of the new materialism's concept of the political (as it is formulated in Bennett's Vibrant Matter ). Second, it seeks to investigate the differences and affinities between neomaterialist thought and Deleuze's philosophy. While Deleuze's focus on material becomings and concrete assemblages certainly lends itself to being utilised by neomaterialist authors, what many of these authors tend to ignore is the Marxian influence in Deleuze's thinking. It would be misleading, then, to see Deleuze as a new materialist avant la lettre, thereby implying that he categorically dismissed the 'old' (i.e. historical) materialism. Rather, what is unique about Deleuze's philosophy is its combination of a Marxist understanding of modes of production and their material conditions with a social ontology – inspired, among others, by Spinoza and Tarde – that emphasises the complex intermingling of human and non-human actors.