Gilles Deleuze's ABCs: The Folds of Friendship (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)

203 Pages·2008·1.11 MB·English

by  Charles J. Stivale

Gilles Deleuze’s ABCs
parallax              re-visions of culture   
                               and society
Stephen G. Nichols, Gerald Prince, and Wendy Steiner,
series editors
Gilles Deleuze’s
ABCs
The Folds of Friendship
Charles J. Stivale
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2008 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2008
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stivale, Charles J.
Gilles Deleuze’s ABCs : the folds of friendship /
Charles J. Stivale.
p. cm. — (Parallax, re-visions of culture and society)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-8018-8723-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-8018-8723-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Deleuze, Gilles, 1925–1995. 2. Friendship. I. Title.
b2430.b454s76 2007
177′.62—dc22 2007023323
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British Library.
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To (a) muse
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Contents
Preface ix
Abbreviations for Works by Gilles Deleuze xix
Introduction: Millennial Deleuze, or
Beyond the Tombeau 1
one ABCs and the Fold
1 From Zigzag to AVect, and Back: Creation, Life,
and Friendship 19
2 The Folds of Pedagogy and Friendship 33
3 The Literary, Signs of Style, and Friendship 48
two Folds and Friendship
4 The Folds of Friendship: Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault 69
5 Deleuze/Parnet in Dialogues: The Folds of
Post-Identity 84
6 Foucault’s Folds: Deleuze and the Interstices
of Friendship 99
7 Deleuze’s Laugh: Friendship and the Impersonal 118
Notes 143
References 163
Index 171
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Preface
Friendship as forms of lived and active practice was as fundamental for Gilles
Deleuze as was his creation of the concepts that constituted for him the very
meaning of philosophy. As I argue explicitly in the introduction, and in the
subsequent chapters implicitly, friendship is not, and indeed cannot be, one
single type of practice in all instances. Hence, I pursue an exploration of what
I call the folds of friendship in Deleuze’s works, a term that encompasses many
forms of practice, especially for Deleuze.1 I undertake this exploration through
complementary perspectives presented in the study’s two parts. The title of
the first part, “ABCs and the Fold,” refers, of course, to L’Abécédaire de Gilles
Deleuze (Gilles Deleuze’s ABC Primer), which serves for me as a fundamental
audiovisual reference. Claire Parnet and the filmmaker Pierre-André Boutang
persuaded Deleuze to participate, starting in 1988, in creating a series of dis-
cussions structured alphabetically according to successive themes (A as in Ani-
mal, B as in Boire [Drinking], C as in Culture, D as in Desire, etc.). Deleuze
was apprised of this alphabetical schema and the specific themes beforehand,
and while his responses seem quite spontaneous, comparison with his diVerent
texts reveals that throughout their exchanges, he frequently drew from a broad
range of his own writings, either already published or in preparation. The sole
condition Deleuze set for his participation in this project was that the film be
made available posthumously. In 1994, however, Deleuze agreed to the trans-
mission of L’Abécédaire on the European Arté channel (from late 1994 into
1995), since his physical condition had so deteriorated that he is reported to
have said, “C’est comme si j’étais déjà parti” (“it is as if I were already gone”).
Indeed, Deleuze committed suicide at the end of the year, in November 1995,
before these transmissions were completed.
My use of this valuable resource is pertinent not only because of the im-
portance that Deleuze attributed to it as an archive but also because there is
no transcript or translation of the interview, following Deleuze’s wish that
none be authorized.2 Since I was not fortunate enough to have been in Europe
during 1994–95 when L’Abécédaire was transmitted in segments on the Arté
ix