Following the Contour of Concepts Toward a Minor Inquiry

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (9) ◽  
pp. 675-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa A. Mazzei
Keyword(s):  
Minor Literature ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Minor Inquiry

In this article, I describe how following the contour of concepts can enable a minor inquiry in which voice might be rethought as what Deleuze and Guattari called a “collective assemblage of enunciation.” Following the contour of Deleuze and Guattari’s “minor literature” and thinking voice as an assemblage, I both explain the characteristics of a minor literature and provide examples of the conditions for a minor inquiry. Mapping an enactment of a minor inquiry with examples from my previous work on voice, I conclude with what minor inquiry might look like as I experiment further with collective assemblages of enunciation.

The Open Society and the Democracy to Come: Bergson, Deleuze and Guattari

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Baugh
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
The State ◽  
Open Society ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
The People ◽  
To Come ◽  
Polar Opposite ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Gain Access

In Bergsonism, Deleuze refers to Bergson's concept of an ‘open society’, which would be a ‘society of creators’ who gain access to the ‘open creative totality’ through acting and creating. Deleuze and Guattari's political philosophy is oriented toward the goal of such an open society. This would be a democracy, but not in the sense of the rule of the actually existing people, but the rule of ‘the people to come,’ for in the actually existing situation, such a people is ‘lacking’. When the people becomes a society of creators, the result is a society open to the future, creativity and the new. Their openness and creative freedom is the polar opposite of the conformism and ‘herd mentality’ condemned by Deleuze and Nietzsche, a mentality which is the basis of all narrow nationalisms (of ethnicity, race, religion and creed). It is the freedom of creating and commanding, not the Kantian freedom to obey Reason and the State. This paper uses Bergson's The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, and Deleuze and Guattari's Kafka: For a Minor Literature, A Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy? to sketch Deleuze and Guattari's conception of the open society and of a democracy that remains ‘to come’.

scholarly journals Enactments of a Minor Inquiry

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 306-316
Author(s):  
Lisa A. Mazzei ◽  
Matthew C. Graham ◽  
Laura E. Smithers
Keyword(s):  
Minor Literature ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Collective Thinking ◽  
Minor Inquiry

In this article, we map conditions and enactments for a new plane of inquiry, what Mazzei named a minor inquiry. Informed by our collective thinking with Deleuze and Guattari’s discussion of a minor literature and its attendant characteristics, deterritorialization, political immediacy, and collective assemblage of enunciation, we present the conditions for inquiry on this new plane, provide enactments from our individual projects, and conclude with incitements for escaping the dogma of prescribed method.

Toward a “Minor Literature”? The Case of Ausländerliteratur in Postwar Germany

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 61-84
Author(s):  
Rita Chin
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
World View ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
German Literature ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Postwar Germany ◽  
A Minor

In recent years, scholars of German literature have increasingly pointed to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's theory of “minor literature” as a crucial framework for understanding the development of minority cultural production in a variety of twentieth-century contexts (Teraoka, 1987; Suhr, 1989; Spector, 2000). Deleuze and Guattari propose that any minority group writing in a major language produces what they term minor literature, which has the capacity to destabilize and undermine the dominant language, culture, and discourse in which its authors operate (Deleuze and Guattari, 1986, pp. 16-27). This specific confluence of identities, texts, and locations, they suggest, calls into question the very foundations of the majority's world view and self-understanding. Deleuze and Guattari's model marks one of the first efforts by Western theorists to conceptualize cultural work that has traditionally been rendered invisible by classical literary writing and established categories of genre, style, and type.

scholarly journals 'Prender de gajo': sujetos trasplantados e imaginarios globales en Luisa Futoransky / 'Prender de gajo': transplanted subjects and global imaginaries in Luisa Futoransky

2017 ◽  
pp. 285
Author(s):  
Marta Sierra
Keyword(s):  
Literary Canon ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Poetic Memory ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Luisa Futoransky

Resumen: La obra de Luisa Futoransky se construye como una “literatura menor” tal como la definen Deleuze y Guattari. Sus poemas y novelas emplean el collage como una forma de “subal-ternizar” el lenguaje literario a fin de cuestionar las grandes narrativas nacionales. Sus textos expresan un pensamiento de fronteras que está traspasado por inquietudes feministas. En el presente trabajo se analiza el modo en que la memoria transatlántica construye el lugar de la “subalternización” en los textos de Futoransky. Por medio de un análisis del uso del collage y otros mecanismos narrativos y poéticos, el trabajo propone leer la obra de Futoransky a partir de una estética desterri-torializadora que se caracteriza por: la disolución del sujeto, el uso del collage, la cita como un mecanismo posmoderno; la estética desfami-liarizadora, el humor y el artificio, y la memoria como la fuente de una estética trasatlántica. El trabajo analiza el modo en que Futoransky explora las tensiones en la relación entre memoria y lugar a partir de un análisis de las tensiones entre lo global y lo local. Palabras clave: Futoransky, literatura menor, subalternización, desterritorlización.Abstract: The works by Luisa Futoransky are representative of what Deleuze and Guattari define as a “minor literature”, a literature that questions the relationship between nation and literary canon. Her novels and poems use collage as a way to represent this “minor literature”, a medium to create a subaltern voice in her literature. Hers is a literature that lives in the borderlands, experiencing the border from a feminist perspective. In this essay, I propose a reading of Futoransky’s works from a transatlantic and subaltern perspective. Her aesthetic project breaks the bonds between language and territory. The main strategies analyzed here are: the dissolution of the subject, the use of collage and quotation as postmodern techniques to destabilize meaning, humor, and a poetic memory that challenges national borders. This paper analyzes how Futoransky explores the tensions between memory and place from the complexities of global and local dynamics. Keywords: Futoransky, Minor Literature, Subalternization, Deterritorialization.

Ultraminor Literature in a Major Language

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-271
Author(s):  
Bhavya Tiwari
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
The South ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Major Language ◽  
Asian Context ◽  
A Minor

Deleuze and Guattari list out three characteristics of a minor literature—it is written in a major language from a marginalized position; its nature is thoroughly political; and it has a collective value. Yet, as this article shows by taking the case of T.S. Pillai’s Malayalam novel Chemmeen (1956) and its various afterlives, world literatures illuminate greater varieties of scale and of characteristics than can readily be covered by a single binary opposition between minor versus major, local versus global, original versus translation, singular versus plural. The concept of ultraminor literature, especially in the South Asian context, thus gives us a chance to engage with an undefined space that archives historical, translational, political, linguistic, idiosyncratic, and aesthetic tales of a text within and outside its tradition.

scholarly journals GILLES’IO DELEUZE’O IR FELIXO GUATTARI MIKROPOLITIKA ŠIUOLAIKINĖS FILOSOFIJOS KONTEKSTE

Problemos ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 34-43
Author(s):  
Audronė Žukauskaitė
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
The Individual ◽  
A Minor

Straipsnyje analizuojama Gilles’io Deleuze’o ir Felixo Guattari kuriama mikropolitikos samprata, kuri priešpriešinama makropolitikai, veikiančiai pripažintų politinių teorijų ir apibrėžtų tapatybių lygmenyje. Mikropolitikos projektas siejamas su tapsmo mažuma, mažosios literatūros, mažosios politikos sampratomis, kurios nukreiptos ne į tapatybės kūrimą, bet į tapsmo procesą, inovaciją, eksperimentą. Deleuze’as ir Guattari teigia, jog tapsmas mažuma yra universalus procesas, kurio tikslas – kiekvieno individo autonomija. Deleuze‘o ir Guattari universalaus tapsmo koncepcija priešpriešinama Alaino Badiou kuriamai karingojo universalizmo sampratai. Badiou postuluojamas universalizmas iš pirmo žvilgsnio yra panašus į Deleuze’o ir Guattari siūlomos tapsmo teorijos universalumą, tačiau abiejų teorijų turinys radikaliai skiriasi. Deleuze’ui ir Guattari pats tapsmas mažuma yra universalus procesas; Badiou, priešingai, mažumas ir skirtumus pasitelkia tam, kad juos redukuotų į lygybę ir vienodumą. Badiou siekia panaikinti skirtumus dėl universalizmo, kuris pasiekiamas per tiesos įvykį, bendrą visiems ir kiekvienam.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: mikropolitika, mažoji literatūra, tapsmas mažuma, paskirybė, universalizmas.Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s Micropolitics in the Context of Contemporary PhilosophyAudronė Žukauskaitė   SummaryThe article discusses Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of micropolitics in relation with the notions of minor literature and becoming-minoritarian. The concept of minor literature appears in Deleuze and Guattari’s Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature and is defined by three characteristics: 1) the deterritorialization of language; 2) the connection of the individual to a political immediacy; 3) the collective assemblage of enunciation. The notion of minor literature is closely related with the notion of becoming-minoritarian developed in A Thousand Plateaus. Deleuze and Guattari claim that becoming-minoritarian is the universal figure of consciousness. In this sense, any kind of becoming is a revolutionary act, because it changes the political constellation of power and enables the repressed to reach an autonomous condition. The concept of becoming-minoritarian is introduced to the contemporary political context through the notion of minor politics, discussed by Nicholas Thoburn. Minor politics is seen not as a fetishization of marginal identity but rather as a possibility to legitimize the existence of those who lack any social identity. In this sense, the notions of becoming-minoritarian and minor politics are contrasted with Alain Badiou’s claim to universality: the question is raised as to whether becoming-minoritarian should necessarily end in autonomy, as Deleuze and Guattari argue, or, by contrast, whether it should seek to universalize the minor and in this way raise the claim for universal justice.Keywords: micropolitics, minor literature, becoming-minoritiarian, the particular, universalism.

DELEUZE, GUATTARI, AND APULEIUS: METAMORPHOSES OF MINOR LITERATURE

Ramus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 191-212
Author(s):  
Assaf Krebs
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Modern Theory ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
A Minor

Despite this paper's title it is only fair to warn the curious reader that it is not about reading Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, or using modern theory to better understand it. At least this is not its main intention. Instead, my wish is to experiment with the Metamorphoses, to wander inside it, to move from the actual to the virtual and the potential; to explore how things connect, proliferate, intensify—rather than learn how they actually are. The paper wishes to provide the readers means whereby they can experience the Metamorphoses, rather than examine categories of genres, style, or mode that lead to interpretation of the text. In other words, this paper addresses the Metamorphoses as Deleuze and Guattari do in their reading of Kafka's work in Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. It focuses on modes of becomings, motions of desire, operating machines, assemblages, and language. According to Deleuze and Guattari, minor literature demonstrates literature's ability to challenge the major order, to undermine the doxa, to unstitch the seam between signifier and signified. It breaks forms and encourages ruptures and new routes, which forces reconstruction of content in new ways. It produces lines of flight, flows, streams, ramifications, and junctions instead of immobile paradigms and moulds; it prefers multiple centres to a centre and periphery; it relinquishes principles of unity for the benefit of experiencing multiplicity. Minor literature therefore is a political action containing the possibility of subverting the major order governed by structures of language, fixed and steady position, and state apparatuses.

Towards a Minor Poetry: Reading Twentieth-Century French Poetry with Deleuze–Guattari and Bakhtin

Paragraph ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-153
Author(s):  
Daisy Sainsbury
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
French Language ◽  
Poetic Language ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Language System ◽  
Poetic Discourse ◽  
Poetry Reading ◽  
Century Poetry ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
A Minor

Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of minor literature, deterritorialization and agrammaticality, this article explores the possibility of a ‘minor poetry’, considering various interpretations of the term, and interrogating the value of the distinction between minor poetry and minor literature. The article considers Bakhtin's work, which offers several parallels to Deleuze and Guattari's in its consideration of the language system and the place of literature within it, but which also addresses questions of genre. It pursues Christian Prigent's hypothesis, in contrast to Bakhtin's account of poetic discourse, that Deleuze and Guattari's notion of deterritorialization might offer a definition of poetic language. Considering the work of two French-language poets, Ghérasim Luca and Olivier Cadiot, the article argues that the term ‘minor poetry’ gains an additional relevance for experimental twentieth-century poetry which grapples with its own generic identity, deterritorializing established conceptions of poetry, and making ‘minor’ the major poetic discourses on which it is contingent.

Semitic and Latin Elements in the Language and Literature of Malta

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-195
Author(s):  
Oliver Friggieri
Keyword(s):  
Complex Formation ◽  
National Language ◽  
Language And Identity ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
The Creation ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Independent Country

The Semitic character of Malta’s language and the Latinity of its culture have both contributed towards the complex formation of a unique country marked by dualities of language and identity. This article seeks to outline the development of Maltese as a medium through which Malta could best express itself and construct its own literature, as Maltese intellectuals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sought to create an alternative to the older Italian and more recent British dominance. The establishment of Maltese as the national language and of a thriving Maltese literature reflects a move away from the use of Maltese Italian as a minor literature to the creation of an “ultraminor” Maltese for an independent country.

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