Of Immanence and Becoming: Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy and/as Relational Ontology

Starting from the famous statement by Deleuze and Guattari in What Is Philosophy? that ‘[i]mmanence can be said to be the burning issue of all philosophy’, this article explores their claim of an ontology of immanence and/as relational ontology in quantum terms. The theme of this special issue allows for a rereading of the terminology of different/ciation, which Deleuze developed in ‘The Method of Dramatization’ and Difference and Repetition, and I here relate it to the question of consistency of the plane of immanence, such as it is emphasised in the later work of Deleuze and Guattari. The article exemplifies the significance that the early issue of ‘dramatization’ as different/ciating passage has on an adequate understanding of both ‘immanence’ and ‘becoming’, and it shows their in/seperability for a relational ontology as onto-ethology. By making the Deleuze-Guattarian immanence resonate with Barad's (quantum) agential realism, the article zooms in on the specific quality of the ‘passage’ in order to do justice to the claim of a ‘mature’ philosophy that thinks immanence as immanent only to itself.

The Origin of Balloon Framing

Modern interest in the balloon frame dates from 1941 when Siegfried Giedion identified the inventor of this important technological innovation in wooden construction as George Snow of Chicago. According to Giedion, Snow used the technique for the first time in 1833 to build St. Mary's Church in Chicago. Walker Field, writing in an early issue of the SAH Journal corrected Giedion's assertion by proving that if St. Mary's Church possessed the first balloon frame, then its inventor had to be the builder of that church, a carpenter named Augustine Taylor. Here we are able to verify that indeed it was George Snow who originated balloon framing, but in 1832, not 1833, and in the erection of a building that was not a church, but a warehouse. Further investigations have revealed the probable location of Snow's warehouse on the bank of the Chicago River near its mouth, and have provided plausible explanations as to why Snow built in so revolutionary a way in so primitive a place as the village of Chicago-viz., the sudden and rapid growth of Chicago, the lack of large timbers and the services of skilled carpenters needed for ordinary frame construction, and the availability of scantling and nails. From this modest experiment in building evolved a system of wooden construction that not only made possible the rapid settlement of the treeless regions of the West, but which still serves in modified form as the basic ingredient of contemporary wooden frame construction.

International Meetings Held in Paris

(Editor's note: Because of our early deadline it is impossible for us to include a rounded report on these two international meetings. We hope to have further reports in an early issue.)

Preliminary Announcement of the Twenty-Seventh Annual Meeting of The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Baltimore, Maryland March 31, April I and 2, 1949

The Twenty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics will be held at Baltimore, Maryland, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 31, April 1 and 2, 1949. Headquarters will be at the Lord Baltimore Hotel, Baltimore and Hanover Streets, and all meetings will be held there. The complete program of speakers will appear in an early issue of The Mathematics Teacher.

News and Notes

The mathematics teachers of Kansas City are cooperating with the Board of Education in determining the qualifications which should be required of mathematics teachers. Mr. William A. Luby, of the Kansas City Jtmior College, will discuss this action in an early issue of the Teacher.