Deleuze, Guattari and the Schizoanalysis of the Global Pandemic: Revolutionary Praxis and Neoliberal Crisis

Description

A vital response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this volume connects the neoliberal underpinnings of the pandemic to the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. By positioning the worst outcomes of the COVID-19 crisis in terms of neoliberal normativity, contributors argue that we need to understand the pandemic rhizomatically. Construed as an event that deterritorializes the globe, the crisis of the pandemic contains within it the potential for creating new assemblages, alliances, and solidarities to offset the power of the state in building regimes of exclusion, insulation and control. Deleuzo-Guattarian attention towards non-human life finds new meaning in the context of the virus, and our understanding of what constitutes life and inorganic life. Crisis, capitalism, and revolution are read anew through the pandemic and core Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts help to situate the proliferation of new models of mutual aid, sustainability, and care in the context of anti-capitalist critique. Cover Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents Figures Contributors Preface: Escaping Anthropocenity Saswat Samay Das and Ananya Roy Pratihar Acknowledgements Introduction Paul Patton Wuhan University The pandemic Thinking through the pandemic event The ‘evental’ nature of the virus and the viral nature of events Societies of control and beyond Covid, culture and community Notes 1 Toward an Epidemiology of Morals Clayton Crockett What can a virus do? Auto-immunity What is a body without organs? The virus is a war machine A new nomos of the earth Notes References 2 Beyond Control: Technology, Post-Faciality and the Dance of the Abstract Brad Evans and Chantal Meza Notes References 3 Obscura Sacrificia: Covid and Neoliberalism Brent Adkins Two war machines Neoliberalism as a war machine Covid as a war machine Envelopment: Covid and neoliberalism Notes References 4 The Task of Thinking in The Age of Biopolitics: Between Heidegger and Deleuze Tony See Sin Heng Introduction Heidegger, technology and thinking Deleuze’s theory of state Rhizomaic-thinking vs. State-thinking Conclusion References 5 Post-Covid Communities: A Schizoanalysis of Immanent Engagements Janae Sholtz The ‘I’, post-Covid Social responsibilities of citizens in the pandemic Post-Covid era and alternative futures Loving and political awareness References 6 The Limits of Perception: Knights of Narcotics, Nonhuman Aesthetics and the Psychedelic Revival Patricia Pisters Introduction: Deleuze and Guattari and the psychedelic revival Aesthetics of psychedelics: perception and attention to life Ontology of intensity at the limits of perception The nonhuman camera eye Revealing bodies without organs of cinema Knights of narcotics and black holes of dependency The esoteric circle: nonhuman ethics and restoring a belief in the world Notes References 7 Deleuze and Guattari: The Pandemic, the Trump Presidency and the Schizo-Analytic Essay Machine Damian Ward Hey The essay machine Machines, synthesis and desiring The universal history of BwO and desiring machines Schizo-analytic instead of psycho-analytic Rhizomality, arborescence, the Body without Organs and the postmodern president Politics – pandemic – president Virus – pathology and analogy Desirability, jouissance and a few instances of Trumpian schizo-narrative Note References 8 Regimes of Exclusion and Control: Politics of Modern Space and Its Role in the Immunization and Pandemics Emine Görgül Introduction Immunology, body and biopolitics Architecture and disease: immunization as an assemblage to cure and enhance Architecture and control: immunization as a disjunction to isolate and segregate Concluding remarks: towards an autopoietic or autotoxicus genesis of space Note References 9 Deleuze (and Guattari) and the Concept of Contaminated People Virgilio A. Rivas Introduction The becomings-animal story Contaminated people Conclusion: a people’s refrain References 10 On the Difference between Morality and Ethics in the New Normal: Gilles Deleuze’s Spinozist Ethics in the Context of COVID-19 Kyle J. Novak Introduction Deleuze’s Spinozist ethics Ethics against morality in Deleuze Ethics against morality in the New Normal Concluding thoughts: a triumph of the sad passions? Notes References 11 The Ethics of Paranoia: How to Become Worthy of COVID-19 Jernej Markelj Paranoia, COVID-19 and the civilized capitalist machine A motley painting of everything that has ever threatened us The ambiguity of paranoia Ethics of paranoia Notes References 12 Thinking the COVID-19 as an Event: A Physical and Spiritual Illness in the Post-Truth Era Francisco J. Alcalá1 Prelude: what is an event? The COVID-19 as an event: what has happened? Conclusion: politics of the event or how to be at the height of what happens to us? Note References 13 A Cartography of Mutual Aid Groups in Brighton: Ethics of Care and Sustainability Elizabeth Vasileva Note References Index