Abstract Machines: Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari. (Faux Titre)

Abstract Machines: Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari is an innovative approach to the relationship of the work of Samuel Beckett to philosophy. The study seeks to combine intertextual analysis and a 'schizoanalytic genealogy' derived from the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari to explore a 'becoming-philosophy' of Beckett's literary writing. The author focuses on zones of encounter and confrontation — spaces and times of 'becoming' — between Beckett, selected philosophers and Deleuze and Guattari. In the retrospective glance occasioned by that part of Deleuze and Guattari's complex legacy which embraces their interest in the author, Beckett's writing in particular effectuates a threshold hesitation which can be seen directly to impact on their approach to the history of philosophy and on their contribution to its 'molecularization' in the name of experimentation. Abstract Machines, with its arresting perspectives on a wide range of Beckett's work, will appeal to academics and postgraduate students interested in the philosophical echoes so evident in his writing. The extent of its recourse to philosophers aside from Deleuze and Guattari, including, notably, Alain Badiou, renders it a timely and provocative intervention in contemporary debates concerning the relationship of literature to philosophy, both within Beckett studies and beyond. What can philosophy bring to the reading of Beckett? Combining intertextual analysis with a 'schizoanalytic genealogy' derived from the authors of L'Anti-Œdipe , Garin Dowd's Abstract Machines: Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari offers an innovative response to this much debated question. The author focuses on zones of encounter and thresholds of engagement between Beckett's writing and a range of philosophers (among them Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant) and philosophical concepts. Beckett's writing impacts in a variety of ways on Deleuze and Guattari's thought, and, in particular, resonates with Deleuze's contributions to the history of philosophy (in books such as Le Pli: Leibniz et le baroque ), and his 'critical and clinical' approach to literature. Furthermore, the books co-written with Guattari, concerned as they are with the 'molecularization' of the discipline of philosophy in the name of 'thinking otherwise', reveal themselves in a new light when explored in conjunction with Beckett's œuvre . With its arresting perspectives on a wide range of Beckett's works, Abstract Machines will appeal to academics and postgraduate students interested in the philosophical aspects of his writing. Its engagement with alternative contributions to the question of Beckett and philosophy, including that of Alain Badiou, renders it a timely and provocative intervention in contemporary debates on the relationship between literature and philosophy, both within the field of Beckett studies and beyond "What can philosophy bring to the reading of Beckett? Combining intertextual analysis with a 'schizoanalytic genealogy' derived from the authors of L'Anti-Oedipe, Garin Dowd's Abstract Machines: Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari offers an innovative response to this much debated question. The author focuses on zones of encounter and thresholds of engagement between Beckett's writing and a range of philosophers (among them Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant) and philosophical concepts. Becketts writing impacts in a variety of ways on Deleuze and Guattaris thought, and, in particular, resonates with Deleuze's contributions to the history of philosophy (in books such as Le Pli: Leibniz et le baroque), and his 'critical and clinical' approach to literature. Furthermore, the books co-written with Guattari, concerned as they are with the 'molecularization' of the discipline of philosophy in the name of 'thinking otherwise', reveal themselves in a new light when explored in conjunction with Becketts oeuvre. With its arresting perspectives on a wide range of Beckett's works, Abstract Machines will appeal to academics and postgraduate students interested in the philosophical aspects of his writing."--Jacket. What can philosophy bring to the reading of Beckett? Combining intertextual analysis with a 'schizoanalytic genealogy', this title offers a response to this much debated question. It focuses on zones of encounter and thresholds of engagement between Beckett's writing and a range of philosophers and philosophical concepts.