What Does A Thousand Plateaus Contribute to the Study of Early Christianity?

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-553
Author(s):  
Bradley H. McLean
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Fortieth Anniversary ◽  
Christian Origins

What difference does the philosophical revolution of Deleuze and Guattari make to our understanding the early Christianity? In honour of the fortieth anniversary of publication of A Thousand Plateaus, this article argues that the discipline of Christian origins is currently premised on a historically condemned mode of subjectivity, that of subject/object metaphysics. The philosophical processes found in A Thousand Plateaus are particularly apposite to the current dilemma of Christian origins: as a rhizome-book consisting of plateaus, machines, singularities and non-representational concepts, this book models new modes of thinking that can help the discipline rejuvenate itself and accomplish new tasks which are presently beyond its reach – for Deleuzian philosophy privileges the virtual over the actual, becoming over being, machinic transformations over static structures, and semiotics over linguistics.

Gibbon and the Clergy: Private Virtues, Public Vices

1990 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myron C. Noonkester
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Classic Work ◽  
Christian Origins ◽  
Literary Phenomenon

When the inaugural volume of Edward Gibbon'sDecline and Fall of the Roman Empirewas published in February 1776, the English public greeted it with a mixture of veneration and anxiety. Many agreed that it was a classic work, but some critics, mostly clergy, questioned its treatment of Christianity. Scholars have approached the ensuing controversy from several angles: Gibbon's reticence reduced it, theologically speaking, to a sampling of doctrinal viewpoints; considered as a literary phenomenon, the controversy merely provoked Gibbon to relegate his opponents to literary oblivion; historiographically, it affirmed the subordination of religious to civil history and the application of philosophical principles to the study of early Christianity. Though each is valid, none of these approaches accounts sufficiently for the historical context in which the controversy occurred. Yet an appreciation of the historical context of the controversy is necessary if Gibbon's achievement and eighteenth-century England's perspective on the problem of Christian origins are to be understood. This article observes Gibbon as he perfected his approach to religion, pondered the criticisms of his opponents, and sought to vindicate himself. In contrast to previous appraisals, it emphasizes that Gibbon was an occasional polemicist, that the controversy affected him deeply, and that, judged by contemporary standards, his critics successfully exploited their advantages in the debate.

Christian Origins and Religious Studies

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Yoshiko Reed
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Origins ◽  
The Relationship

This essay reflects on the relationship between the study of the origins of Christianity and the discipline of Religious Studies in conversation with William Arnal’s “What Branches Grow out of this Stony Rubbish? Christian Origins and the Study of Religion,” published in Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses in 2010. Extending Arnal’s call for specialists in the New Testament and early Christianity to engage Religious Studies, it explores a reorientation of perspective, towards the aim of a doubled lens from and upon both Christian Origins and Religious Studies. Particularly promising may be the interrogation of ancient and modern practices of periodization and category-creation, especially as they intersect with imperial and anti-imperial discourses about “origins,” knowledge, and power.

An introduction to the themed issue on RNA biology in China

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 863-866
Author(s):  
Zhe Wu
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Fortieth Anniversary ◽  
Rna Biology ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
Education In China

Abstract The year 2019 marked the fortieth anniversary of the Chinese Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (CSBMB), whose mission is to promote biomolecular research and education in China. The last 40 years have witnessed tremendous growth and achievements in biomolecular research by Chinese scientists and Essays in Biochemistry is delighted to publish this themed issue that focuses on exciting areas within RNA biology, with each review contributed by key experts from China.

The Common as Body Without Organs

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (supplement) ◽  
pp. 46-63
Author(s):  
Vidar Thorsteinsson
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Fundamental Importance ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Conceptual Apparatus ◽  
Body Without Organs ◽  
Social Factory ◽  
The Common

The paper explores the relation of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's work to that of Deleuze and Guattari. The main focus is on Hardt and Negri's concept of ‘the common’ as developed in their most recent book Commonwealth. It is argued that the common can complement what Nicholas Thoburn terms the ‘minor’ characteristics of Deleuze's political thinking while also surpassing certain limitations posed by Hardt and Negri's own previous emphasis on ‘autonomy-in-production’. With reference to Marx's notion of real subsumption and early workerism's social-factory thesis, the discussion circles around showing how a distinction between capital and the common can provide a basis for what Alberto Toscano calls ‘antagonistic separation’ from capital in a more effective way than can the classical capital–labour distinction. To this end, it is demonstrated how the common might benefit from being understood in light of Deleuze and Guattari's conceptual apparatus, with reference primarily to the ‘body without organs’ of Anti-Oedipus. It is argued that the common as body without organs, now understood as constituting its own ‘social production’ separate from the BwO of capital, can provide a new basis for antagonistic separation from capital. Of fundamental importance is how the common potentially invents a novel regime of qualitative valorisation, distinct from capital's limitation to quantity and scarcity.

The Take and the Stutter: Glenn Gould's Time Synthesis

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 558-577
Author(s):  
Mickey Vallee
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Sound Recording ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Concert Hall ◽  
The Third ◽  
Passive Synthesis ◽  
Recording Studios ◽  
Recorded Performance

In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari refer to Glenn Gould as an illustration of the third principle of the rhizome, that of multiplicity: ‘When Glenn Gould speeds up the performance of a piece, he is not just displaying virtuosity, he is transforming the musical points into lines, he is making the whole piece proliferate’ (1987: 8). In an attempt to make sensible their ostensibly modest statement, I proliferate the relationships between Glenn Gould's philosophy of sound recording, Deleuze's theory of passive synthesis, and Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the stutter. I argue, ultimately, that Glenn Gould's radical recording practice stutters and deterritorialises the temporality of the recorded performance. More generally, the Deleuzian perspective broadens the scope of Gould's aesthetic practices that highlights the importance of aesthetic acts in the redistribution of sensory experience. But the study serves a broader purpose than celebrating a pianist/recordist that Deleuze admired. Rather, while his contemporaries began to use the studio as a compositional element in sound recording, Gould bypassed such a step towards the informational logics of recording studios. Thus, it is inappropriate to think of Gould as having immersed himself in ‘technology’ than the broader concept of a complex, one that redistributed the striated listening space of the concert hall.

From Deleuze and Guattari's Words to a Deleuzian Theory of Reading

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-557
Author(s):  
Daniel Haines
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Transcendental Empiricism ◽  
Theory Of Reading ◽  
Open Question

While Deleuze and Guattari's passion for certain literature is well known, the nature of a ‘Deleuzian’ literary criticism remains an open question. However, most critics appear to agree that Deleuze and Guattari's comments on meaning and interpretation offer an ontological alternative to the textual focus of deconstruction. Through an interrogation of the difficult style of their books in relation to Plato, Nietzsche and Derrida, this paper offers a different reading of Deleuze and Guattari in relation to literary criticism. Despite appearances, transcendental empiricism and the project of ‘overturning Platonism’ provide a Deleuzian theory of reading that attends to textuality.

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