CFP: Deleuze and Guattari Studies Special Issue: "Deleuze and Kierkegaard: Thinking Difference, Thinking Existence"

Deleuze and Guattari Studies Call for Papers: Special Issue – “Deleuze and Kierkegaard: Thinking Difference, Thinking Existence”

“This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think” – Johannes Climacus, Philosophical Fragments

Guest Editors:

Andrew M. Jampol-Petzinger (Grand Valley State University)

Robert W. Luzecky (George Mason University)

Invited Contributors:

Ada S. Jaarsma (Mount Royal University)

Vernon W. Cisney (Gettysburg College)

Kierkegaard’s work is perhaps somewhat surprisingly under-represented in secondary literature on Deleuze, especially by contrast to discussions of more prominent Deleuzian foils like Spinoza, Nietzsche and Bergson. This, despite the fact that from Deleuze’s very earliest lectures (“What is Grounding?” [1956-7]) to his last co-authored works (A Thousand Plateaus [1980], What is Philosophy? [1991]), Kierkegaard is a regular—if oftentimes obscure—reference (see oblique or direct references to Kierkegaard in, for example, Difference and Repetition, Bergsonism, The Logic of Sense, What is Philosophy?, Cinemas I & II, Nietzsche and Philosophy, A Thousand Plateaus, and elsewhere). Moreover, many of the central preoccupations of Deleuze’s thought—the emphases upon singularity, repetition, paradox, and others—place his work in clear dialogue with the Danish philosopher-poet, and the background of Deleuze’s intellectual formation, engaged with the work of such Kierkegaard-devotees as Jean Wahl, Pierre Klossowski and Lev Shestov, suggests a closer affinity between Deleuze and Kierkegaard’s thinking than might have been evident from the relative paucity of secondary material linking the two.

This collection aims to fill this gap regarding the “Deleuze-Kierkegaard” connection, inviting new research investigating the influences, contexts, shared preoccupations, convergences and divergences of the two philosophers. We welcome, in particular, research that draws in whole or in part upon under-emphasized resources from the two figures—drawing, for example, upon any of the recently-translated (or as-yet untranslated) materials from the important “Deleuze Seminars” project, or from more obscure (and/or posthumous) works by Kierkegaard (for example, The Book on Adler, The Concept of Irony or under-cited Upbuilding Discourses).

Topics to be explored in this volume may include (but are certainly not limited to) the following:

·       Kierkegaardian use of pseudonyms and Deleuze’s conceptual personae

·      Kierkegaard’s aesthetic authorship and Deleuze’s efforts to write beyond the traditional image of philosophy (Dialogues, pg. 16)

·       Deleuze and post-secularism

·       Deleuzian (or non-Deleuzian) readings of Kierkegaard’s ontology (see, for example, Shakespeare [2015], Burns [2015], Kangas [2017], et al.), including comparisons of Deleuzian univocity and Kierkegaard’s absolute (FT “Problema I”), Spinozistic substance-ontology and Kierkegaard’s “establishing power” (Sickness Unto Death), etc.

·       Philological research on Deleuze’s secondary sources (i.e., what did Deleuze read—or what should he have read—from Chestov, Butor, Wahl, Camus, et al.)

·       The place of Kierkegaard and/or Kierkegaardian ideas in Deleuze’s interpretations of art, literature and film (Cinemas I & II, the Kafka book, Proust and Signs, The Logic of Sensation, etc.)

·       Comparisons of key concepts in Deleuze and Kierkegaard: ethics vs. morality, singularity, belief (Tro / croyance), repetition, difference (det Forskjellige), theatricality, transcendence vs. immanence, etc.

·       Deleuzo-Kierkegaardian readings of fundamental metaphysical categories (identity, difference, time, movement, existence, the absolute)

·       Kierkegaard and Deleuze as critics of Hegel (or as foils to Nietzsche)

·       Kierkegaardian influences on Deleuze’s milieu

·       Corrective readings of Kierkegaard (contra and/or in favor of Deleuze).

Authors should submit abstracts ahead of completed manuscripts (to ensure compatibility with the themes of the issue), using the email address below. Abstracts should be submitted by Nov. 1st 2023 and should be between 250-400 words in length. Authors will be notified of results by Nov. 30th 2023. Please note that approval of abstracts does not guarantee acceptance of final manuscripts.

Final contributions should between 6000-8000 words in length and use the Deleuze and Guattari Studies (https://www.euppublishing.com/loi/dlgs) style. First drafts of papers are due on June 1st 2024.

The editors will prioritize submissions from authors who self-identify as members of groups traditionally under-represented in institutional philosophy.

Abstracts (as well as questions) may be submitted to the editors at the following email address:

[email protected]