John Rajchman: Constructions (1998)

In this series of overlapping essays on architecture and art, John Rajchman attempts to do theory in a new way that takes off from the philosophy of the late Gilles Deleuze. Starting from notions of folding, lightness, ground, abstraction, and future cities, he embarks on a conceptual voyage whose aim is to help “construct” a new space of connections, to “build” a new idiom, perhaps even to suggest a new architecture. Along the way, he addresses questions of the new abstraction, operative form, other geometries, new technologies, global cities, ideas of the virtual and the formless, and possibilities for critical theory after utopia and transgression.

Foreword by Paul Virilio
Publisher MIT Press, 1998
Writing Architecture series
ISBN 0262680963, 9780262680967
143 pages

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PDF (EPUB; updated on 2012-7-25)

Nick Srnicek: Assemblage Theory, Complexity and Contentious Politics. The Political Ontology of Gilles Deleuze (2007)

The purpose of this thesis is to reconsider the nature of ontology in contemporary political science, with the belief that such a move can be of great benefit to understanding changes in our era of globalization and terrorism. This is accomplished by examining the ontologies of both social constructivism and critical realism in order to show their reliance upon illegitimate presuppositions, and then developing a novel ontological position on the basis of these criticisms.

Gilles Deleuze’s concept of assemblages – and his ontology, more generally – are examined as particularly powerful ways to conceptualize the complexity, dynamism and differences that are inherent to the political world. This is brought out concretely in a study of recent academic work on contentious politics in order to show the centrality of conflict and difference to politics, and to show the power of a reconceptualization of ontology.

Keywords: Deleuze; Bhaskar; individuation; ontology; complexity; contentious politics; critical realism; assemblages; social constructivism

Unpublished MA Thesis
The University of Western Ontario, 2007.

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Manuel DeLanda: A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity (2006)

Manuel DeLanda is a distinguished writer, artist and philosopher. In his new book, he offers a fascinating look at how the contemporary world is characterized by an extraordinary social complexity. Since most social entitles, from small communities to large nation-states, would disappear altogether if human minds ceased to exist, Delanda proposes a novel approach to social ontology that asserts the autonomy of social entities from the conceptions we have of them. This highly original and important book takes the reader on a journey that starts with personal relations and climbs up one scale at a time all the way to territorial states and beyond. Only by experiencing this upward movement can we get a sense of the irreducible social complexity that characterizes the contemporary world.

Publisher Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006
ISBN 0826491693, 9780826491695
142 pages

Keywords and phrases
deterritorialization, Gilles Deleuze, Fernand Braudel, Manuel DeLanda, Thousand Plateaus, Felix Guattari, Anthony Giddens, Charles Tilly, causal, Max Weber, Ian Hacking, emergent properties, Pierre Bourdieu, nation-states, assemblage theory, economies of agglomeration, interac, phase space, linguistic, Michel Foucault

review (Steven Shaviro)
commentary from DeLanda reading group: Introduction (Levi Bryant); Chapter I (Levi Bryant); Chapter II (Alex Reid); Chapter III (Michael~); Chapter IV, part 1 & part 2 (Mark Edward); Chapter V

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PDF (no OCR; updated on 2012-7-17)