Based Deleuze

If deconstruction is unclear how is it fruitful? Not trying to be antagonistic, I'm genuinely curious about your take.

Deleuze is often assigned for performing/plastic/visual/etc. arts classes.

It is unclear in literature circles. I’ve never seen someone deconstruct a text well. I’ve seen plenty of deconstruction happen in sociology philosophy etc that is fruitful.

Rorty said it well in his talk at a symposium on pragmatism and deconstruction in 1993:

"These fans also think that there is a method called 'deconstruction' which one can apply to texts and teach to students. I have never been able to figure out what this method is, nor what was being taught to students except some such maxim like, 'Find something that can be made to look self-contradictory, claim that that contradiction is the central message of the text, and ring some changes on it.' Application of this maxim produced, in the 1970s and 1980s, tens of thousands of 'deconstructive readings' of texts by American and British professors - readings which were as formulaic and as boring as the tens of thousands of readings which can be resulted from dutifully applying the maxim 'Find something that can be made to sound like a symptom of an unresolved Oedipus complex.'"

Ok, I understand. The reason I ask is because I had the same feeling going through uni when we had to write "deconstructive" papers about works. The instruction was often along the lines of "find fault lines in the work to deconstruct." No one really seemed to know what that meant.

I had the same thing. I never met another student who deconstructed texts that, when probed about what exactly that meant, didn’t fall back on obfuscating vocabulary. It’s the same with Deleuze. Deleuze is really weird to read, he tries to be esoteric in some ways, and part of the issue is that asking what something “means” for deleuze is missing the point of his philosophy. You can latch onto Deleuzean vocabulary very easily.

>asking what something “means” for deleuze is missing the point of his philosophy.
If you don't mind humoring one more question, how does asking for clarification miss the point of his philosophy? I'm not very well versed in his thought.

it's hard to explain, but deleuze takes issue with traditional forms of semiotic meaning, specifically structuralist meaning. surprisingly enough, much of deleuze's philosophy of language matches up with late wittgenstein and richard rorty; the meaning of language arises from the manner in which it is used, or rather the use of the word is its meaning, the word does not correspond to a Meaning a priori.

Very interesting. Thanks.
I'm sort of interested in his sort of non-anti-intellectual opposition to fixed structures of thinking about things (this is my interpretation based on limited readings.) I'll give him more of a read some time soon.

this. his understanding of nietzsche is embarassing af. imagine being so dimwitted that you’re forced to relegate the west’s best thinkers to political ideologists.

Things have no essence, they are determined by the power they have to act; In other words: something is what "it can", not what a concept defines "it is".

this is an inaccurate characterization. most departments have moved on from poststructuralism as active theory aside from the obligatory nods to living figures and the undergraduate survey course. i cant think of a single deleuzean academic in America today, and the only relevant Derrideans have been marked and are easily avoided (Spivak and Ronell, notably). there just simply isn’t an ubiquitous figure in literature departments, aside from like Foucault, who’s treated more as a textbook reference, like Marx and Freud, then someone people are actively investigating. This board likes to stop just short of the post-theory, which is ironically just the sort of thing the space taoist kids could really get a hold of. I imagine some autistic fuck could take a big bite out of the “end of theory” arguments and decelop some really interesting nodes of quasi-pragmatic thought.

I think its because its so obscurantist it sounds smart. All you have to do is regurgitate some word salad and congrats you are a pseud.

>This board likes to stop just short of the post-theory, which is ironically just the sort of thing the space taoist kids could really get a hold of.
>I imagine some autistic fuck could take a big bite out of the “end of theory” arguments and decelop some really interesting nodes of quasi-pragmatic thought.
I'm interested. What is post-theory? Recommended readings?

bc is the hot shit at the moment in every humanities department. Him and Foucalt

Imagine some mouth-breathing NPC professor trying to talk about a Body Without Organs in a reading of The Great Gatsby.

Looks boring as fuck.

Knapp and Michaels “Against Theory” is a good start

There is a good Yale course on this.

Thanks both of you.