Deleuze, Marx and Politics
A critical and provocative exploration of the political, conceptual and cultural points of resonance between Deleuzes minor politics and Marxs critique of capitalist dynamics, Deleuze, Marx and Politics is the first book to engage with Deleuzes missing work, The Grandeur of Marx.
Following Deleuzes call for an interpretation that draws new relations and connections, this book explores the core categories of communism and capital in conjunction with a wealth of contemporary and historical political concepts and movements from the lumpenproletariat and anarchism to Italian autonomia and Antonio Negri, immaterial labour and the refusal of work. Drawing on literary figures such as Kafka and Beckett, Deleuze, Marx andPolitics develops a politics that breaks with the dominant frameworks of post-Marxism and one-dimensional models of resistance towards a concern with the inventions, styles and knowledges that emerge through minority engagement with social flows and networks. This book is also an intervention in contemporary debates about new forms of identity and community, information technology and the intensification of work.
This book will serve as an introduction to Deleuzes politics and the contemporary vitality of Marx for students and will challenge scholars in the fields of social and political theory, sociology and cultural studies.
Nicholas Thoburn teaches in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
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Nicholas Thoburn
Deleuze, Marx and Politics
Nicholas Thoburn
First published 2003
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
2003 Nicholas Thoburn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Thoburn, Nicholas, 1970
Deleuze, Marx and Politics / Nicholas Thoburn.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Deleuze, GillesContributions in political science. 2. Marx, Karl, 18181883Contributions in political science. I. Title.
JC261. D39 T56 2003
320.53'2dc21 2002011416
ISBN 0-203-36174-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-37432-0 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-28275-6 (Print Edition)
For June, John and Alan
Acknowledgements
This book is the product of many relations over a number of years, and my gratitude to those who have been part of it is great indeed. Most of the research was carried out as part of a doctoral thesis undertaken in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London. I owe a debt of gratitude to Nikolas Rose who was always supportive, encouraging and challenging in his supervision of the thesis. Throughout that process and since, Martha Michailidou has been the very best of friends. I could not have done without her warmth, intellectual creativity and critical bent. Conversation with friends and colleagues always helped me develop these ideas, and led them elsewhere (not that anyone acknowledged here is responsible for the books errors). For this I would like to thank Andrew Barry, Chetan Bhatt, Margot Butler, Kirsten Campbell, Stephen Cross, Ben Gidley, Liz Moor, Yasmeen Narayan and Tiziana Terranova. I would also like to thank Paul Gilroy and Keith Ansell Pearson for their encouragement at the stage of the examination of the thesis. Thank you also to Diana Lockyer and Jean York for their support in the early stages, and to those at Goldsmiths who helped me through the not always easy combination of research and work, Karen Catling and Doreen Norman. I would also like to thank Joe Whiting for commissioning this book and the editorial team at Routledge for their support in the final stages.