Affect and Singularity: Reading with Deleuze on the Arts

[boyd94]

Hello everyone!

As it happens I'm currently in the process of drafting my MA dissertation in English Literature, comprising a reading of American author Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian; All the Pretty Horses; No Country for Old Men; The Road, etc.) through the lens of the fascinating metaphilosophy of Gilles Deleuze.

Deleuze's thought can best be described as a philosophy of creation. As such, he has produced profound and insightful analysis across literature, cinema, painting and music and the dynamic, forward-facing nature of his 'logic of sense' allows for extraordinary opportunities for future analysis. Restrictions on time has meant that my reading of Deleuze over the last few months has been contained largely to the primary materials, unearthing the raw concepts and applying them to my chosen literary subject. It's not a long project, efficiency and triage are the guiding principles.

My plan for the near future (and hopefully extending into academic research) however is to do a thorough deep-dive into the man and his work, and as I move through his vast array of allusions I intend to educate myself quite deeply into their sources, an encyclopedic range across the breadth of world culture and knowledge. This will serve the twofold purpose of deepening my understanding of Deleuze and its own self-justifying pursuit of joyful and productive encounters.

This entails years of work, but I thought it'd be nice to annotate some of those encounters (in literature, cinema, painting and of course music) here as I go in case others find it interesting. Honestly, I feel genuinely enraptured by what I'm doing and I'll shout it from the rooftops to anyone who'll hear. I've considered starting a blog but I completely disengaged from social media so I have no audience

Obviously before I begin I'll set the terms of the whole discourse. The first major barrier to reading Deleuze is language and his fractal, self-reflexive, allusory style of writing. It just requires a slight (but nonetheless profound) perspective shift and it all falls into place. I think I'll start after I've submitted my dissertation in a few weeks with a theoretical introduction, but this post will serve as a placeholder and mission statement.

Thanks.

[Tap]

oh nice, this is an ambitious undertaking. I struggle with fully understanding a lot of Deleuze but I like what I've seen, excited to see what you whip up!

[Tha1ChiefRocka]

Oh my. I'm a year away from doing something like that. Have you read Blood Meridian yet? I couldn't get through it. I tried reading it when I was a junior in high school, and I couldn't do it. Too brutal.

[boyd94]

[RoundTheBend]