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Deleuze and Bodies

23:39 / 27.10.03

Here is a relatively obscure question or point about Deleuzian theory, but all-comers are welcome for a no-holds-barred anti-Cartesian corporeal throwdown...

Deleuze is famous - among other things - for expanding the ways contemporary theory thinks of the body: not as a placeholder for subjectivity, a simple natural object, or the other of culture, but a radically open set of possibilities, powers and affects. Thus, this morning, I set about what I assumed would be the relatively simple task of taking notes from a few of his (and Guattari's and Parnet's) books - Anti-Oedipus, A Thousand Plateaus, and Dialogues - to support such a position on the body.

Oddly enough, I found the opposite of what I expected; Deleuze didn't have much positive to say about bodies. The man who loved Spinoza's question, 'what can a body do?' didn't seem to have much of a clue, himself: everything a body actually can do is deprecated in favour of the abstract, the literary and the philosophical. He disses getting pissed (wouldn't it be better to get drunk off pure water - a bizzarre position for a self-described 'pragmatist'), masochism (there are other, better ways...), dancing (in Dialogues - 'we're not really very happy,' he asserts), and even pleasure (in favour of abstract positive desire). According to an interview with Clare Parnet, he didn't even like eating.

So if I want to invoke the positive Deleuzian body, I'm going to feel like the shonky lawyer in The Castle: What specific aspects of Deleuze's theory of the body are relevant in this case? Uh... the vibe.

Am I missing something? Are there moments in Deleuze's work that do have something nice to say about actual bodies? Or, alternately, are there other theorists who provide a better basis for affirming the body's potential and connectedness?

02:24 / 29.10.03

Well, that's the thing. If Deleuze was truly interested in the body, he'd have been a weightlifter/athelte or an epic epicurean ("a waffer thin mint, sir?"). Unlike Foucault, he doesn't seem to have got out (of it) much.

Speaking of Foucault, I suppose that he's more interested in how bodies get constricted by vortices of power, knowledge and pleasure than in the body's unfettered potential. And you have the dissected, morphing bodies of Libidinal Economy too.

You might try Serres - Genesis has a bit on dancing. And this essay is quite interesting: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/eh/eng/skc/5senses.htm
(The Five Senses is only available in French as far as I know).

Being aware of your encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary theory, I'm hesitant to recommend anyone. Bataille perhaps? My knowledge of Feminist theory is shamefully poor but what have the likes of Butler done on this? How about Acker and Burroughs?

Possibly some Eastern stuff - Taoism, Tibetan buddhism - traditions where the mind is reached through the training of the body?

Even Lakoff?

07:45 / 29.10.03

Following on from Pepsi's comments, this is one of the problems I have with the whole realm of theory as applied to the body, in that it seems as if a complex intellectual arguement is erected that obstructs experience of whatever-it-is that is being theorised about.

Reading that sentence through it sounds pretty ignorant/dismissive which it's not meant too - I'm aware there's a lot of incredible discourse surrounding the body (even if I've not read most of it). Would anybody like to comment further? is this a contradiction or not?

09:03 / 29.10.03

The last sentence should probably read: "is there a contradiction between theorising about the body and experiencng the body" or something along those lines. I suppose this question comes down to what you see the purpose of theory being, and what uses and applications it has in your life. I wouldn't be surprised to find this topic has been discussed elsewhere in this forum, can anyone can point me in the direction of a thread?

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:14 / 29.10.03

"Well, that's the thing. If Deleuze was truly interested in the body, he'd have been a weightlifter/athelte or an epic epicurean ("a waffer thin mint, sir?"). Unlike Foucault, he doesn't seem to have got out (of it) much"

Well, yes, basically.

Can't remember a thread on those lines, Ill. Start it, and I'll contribute, as i think it's a really important question.

And my instinctive response was similar to Ill's. in that there are other disciplines & practices in which this stuff is bread and butter, Cult Studs is definitely playing catch-up/having to go through a process of unlearning.

(i'm especially, if you want an 'academic' equivalent, thinking of some branches of humanistic psychotherapy. Feminist/queer/kink pyschotherapeutic practice and theory is loaded with the kind of stuff it sounds like your looking for, albeit with a different focus) but I'm presuming you're after Cult.Studs stuff.

Like Pepsi, have a 'coals to newcastle' feeling about these but:

Bataille could be usfeul: his rewriting of Heideggerian being, focus (after Nietzsche, I think) on a situated critique in his case turns him inward, to personal iconography and the body. The body and its products pop up again and again, Bataille seems to me to be a good example of embodied work... It's not all about blood,shit and piss,but about the radical possibilities of reimagining the body. I don't get a sense from his work that he lived in his head.

Bersani?

Foucault, definitely.

Peggy Phelans's work is very concerned with the peformativity of writing from the pyschoanalytic/traumatic body, especially Mourning Sex:Performing Public Memory.

Will have a think and come back.

Erm, off the track a bit maybe but Pat Califia/Guy Baldwin (ie thinking of the realms of SM'ers writing and theorising from their practice?)

Disco is My Class War

01:22 / 30.10.03

It may be self-evident but the body does tend to function for Deleuze (less so for Guattari) as a metaphor, or a string of metaphors. Look at the body without organs -- what do the organs stand for? Internal structures of oppression. He's still tied to psychoanalysis enough for the critiques of masochism etc to be pretty much about psychic structures -- desire, pleasure, anti-desire or whatever -- informing the techniques of the body rather than sensation or materiality itself. Yeah?

I'd go right back to Spinoza, myself. Parts of the Ethics and some other bits, too. Also, obviously, Nietzsche. I'm assuming you're looking for an anti-humanist reading of the body (although I could be wrong) that doesn't reify 'experience' or 'materiality' all over again, against critique or 'mind'. Massumi has some good things to say about bodies (specifically, football and style) in Parables of the Virtual. On the other hand you could try Merleau-Ponty and phenomenology stuff -- it seems to be all the rage in academic circles at the moment, have you noticed?

Ex

15:40 / 30.10.03

More suggestions of body-theorists - loads of the French Feminists are concerned with using the specific bodily experience (often of being female) to produce theory and perspectives.
Some bits are poised between essentialism and metaphor and may not be what you're after - the essentialism makes me rather queasy. For example, genitals (in This Sex Which Is Not One) get used to interpret the idea that man is perceived as unitary, woman as fragmentary and diffuse - but is this a social organisation read through the body, or a thing that originates in the body? If the latter, why are a woman's labia always touching and 'talking' to one another, when a bloke and his foreskin aren't on first name terms?
But if anyone wants to feel a bit "yay me and my fabulous diffuse multichattering labia" then try Luce Irigaray.
Kristeva (Powers of Horror) is good for locating the idea of self and other in very bodily experiences (I know, regurgitation isn't much fun).
I'm winging this, as I've avoided reading them for years (due to aforementioned debates about essentialism and their dense lyrical language - lost patience). Scathing criticism might prompt me to go back and examine them properly. Or weep quietly.