From: gvcarter-AT-purdue.edu
Date: Wed,  8 Dec 2004 18:25:36 -0500
Subject: Re: Rhizome-Banyan



Steven,

Today I was in discussion with a collig who noted an anecdote about Descartes 
looking out a window at a tree.  This particular window was composed of a 
number of different sectional panes, and as such the tree was divided up into 
coordinates.

Prior to this sectioning the tree might be thought of as a rhizome.  

Of course, D & G favor the sense of the rhizome to that of aborescence, and so 
it's interesting to think of a tree as a rhizome.  

This just serves to remind me that neither Descartes, nor Deleuze and Guattari, 
persumably spent much time around banyan trees that are so plentiful in the 
Florida Keys.  

There's a park down in there in Florida, in fact, called the Kanapaha Gardnes --
near Gainesville -- and it has the William Bartram's trail.

It's worth noting, perhaps, that William Bartram's book, _Travels_, served as 
inspiration for Coleridge's Kubla Khan.  

Though something of a Derridean, one might get on such a trail by looking into 
the work of Greg Ulmer who does some work down there in Florida.

Amidst the banyan trees!  

best, g   

    


Quoting Steven Snell <04048675-AT-brookes.ac.uk>:

> 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. 
> 
> 
>