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An engagement with the post-Darwinian biology central to Deleuze and Guattari's ecological form of thought
The study of life has been hit with a series of shockwaves since Darwin. Many of the mainstays of evolution have been challenged, and the future of our understanding of biology remains open. Deleuze has long been considered a critic of evolutionary thought. But it is now possible to see in his work a strong convergence with the new directions that have begun to take shape in the study of evolution.
Deleuze and Evolutionary Theory gathers together contributions by many of the central theorists in Deleuze studies, who have led the way in breaking down the boundaries between philosophical and biological research. They focus on the significance of Deleuze and Guattari's engagements with evolutionary theory across the full range of their work, from the interpretation of Darwin in Difference and Repetition, to the symbiotic alliances of wasp and orchid in A Thousand Plateaus, and explore the anthropological, social and biopolitical significance of the convergences and divergences between philosophy and evolutionary science.
Michael James Bennett is Faculty Fellow in the Humanities at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia
Tano S. Posteraro is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Penn State University.
List of contents
Introduction: Historical Formations and Organic Forms
Michael James Bennett and Tano Posteraro
1. Unnatural Nuptials
Barry Allen
2. The Egg: Deleuze between Darwin and Ruyer
Jon Roffe
3. Framing Sexual Selection: Elizabeth Grosz's work on Deleuze, Darwin and Feminism
Erin Hortle and Hannah Stark
4. Deleuze, Developmental Systems Theory, and the Philosophy of Nature
Michael James Bennett
5. Deterritorialisation and Creative Involution: A Note on Guattari and Deleuze
Paul-Antoine Miquel
6. Hydrosocial Becomings: Evolutionary Perspectives on Water Assemblages and Maya Kingship
Johan Normark
7. Against Social Evolution: Deleuze and Guattari's Social Topology
Daniel W. Smith
8. Epigenesis and the Outside
Claire Colebrook
About the author
Michael James Bennett is Faculty Fellow in the Humanities at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of Deleuze and Ancient Greek Physics: The Image of Nature (Bloomsbury 2017) and writes on the intersections between twentieth-century continental thought, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of biology.Tano S. Posteraro is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Penn State University. His current research concerns Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze as philosophers of biology against the background of the contemporary life sciences. In addition to co-editing Deleuze and Evolutionary Theory, he has also published a number of articles on biological themes in Continental philosophy.
