Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 10:08:27 +1100 (EST) From: "Glen Fuller" <g.fuller-AT-uws.edu.au> Subject: Re: Rhizome Hey Steven, Perhaps some good advice (From Badiou's book an Deleuze, although you certainly figure it out for yourself after a while) when beginning Deleuze is that Deleuze continually deploys modulations of his virtual/actual couplet. The couplet is of course tempered by which ever multiplicity or assemblage is being placed in the Deleuzian centrifuge. The rhizome is not a metaphor (they say somewhere, I think AO or maybe ATP, horribly paraphrasing "We do not speak in metaphors.") in the sense that D&G are trying to explain something. It is more a trigger in the sense they want you to think something. Ian Buchanan has talked about it in terms of there always being 'two books' in any of D and D&G's (especially D&G's) books. The book constituted by words on the page, and the book that was not written but is fully real. I would argue you should take a transversal jump to the pages in Nomadology on the Royal vs minor science. The book is an attempt to turn an essentially linear communication mode (words on the page) into a non-linear or hypertextual transmission of sense. In fact, I would begin with the Nomadology chapter, then the one after (apparatus of capture?? i think), then return to Rhizomes. Just skim the pages so some of the ideas jump out at you, do not bother doing a close-reading. It will appear to be a rather crappy anthopological essay without having been bolstered by other parts of the book. (The same goes for the rhizome chapter (originally published as a separate essay and then joined for the English edition) and I am suggesting the chapter on Nomadology/Capture because they do the most bolstering.) ATP is a challenging book because it needs (no, it _demands_) to be read a number of times in a number of different ways. If you want to cheat!!! Just grab Deleuze's interview books: Dialogues and Negotiations, and Guattari's Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm. [MOst secondary literature is good Buchanan, Patton, Massumi, etc. but there is so much you might not ever get to D&G there is so much around now!!!] Then tackle ATP. It is very hard to start I think, everything has to kind of be downloaded at once. And then forgotten, and then remembered in the terms of your own project/thoughts. I have been reading Deleuze's stuff solidly for about 2 years, between other more pressing texts, and my brain hurts. I tried to explain the virtual/actual couplet to someone the other day and it made me realise how little I actually know or am comfortable with. Ciao, Glen. > All -- > > I've started working through the trenches of D and G and thought I would get > out some ideas on the rhizome. (I'm also on a couple of other lists, but > this one, although Lyotard, has engaging exchanges, and also occasionally > refers to D and G.) I have begun _1000 Plateaus_ but felt it best to go back > to _Anti-Oedipus_ and then move on from there... > > So, the Rhizome -- this seems to be an investigative metaphor, but I am > unsure if it is 'classified' as a research method such as 'realism,' > 'positivism,' 'postmodernism,' or what have you. It seems to allows for a > sort of intellectual reconnisance -- diversive and unbound. There also seems > to be some postmodernism tied to it, as it offers no grounded standpoint > from which to view, rather many standpoints and many 'truths.' I realize I > am trying to get into the rhizomatic method in one paragraph but there seems > to be a wealth of investigative power there and I want to get my head around > it. > > Any talks or hints or suggestions would be grand. > > Cheers, > > Steven. > > > -- PhD Candidate Centre for Cultural Research University of Western Sydney Read my rants: http://glenfuller.blogspot.com/
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