Exhausted philosophy and islands-to-come

Abstract

Drawing on an array of sources, from Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy (schizoanalysis) through to non-philosophy (cinema, literature), this paper concerns itself with the manifestation of the concepts of hope and despair in utopian thought and continental philosophy and the experience of hopelessness, despair and exhaustion in the contemporary moment. I aim to demonstrate such pressing concerns through a comparison of Japanese philosopher Kojin Karatani and Japanese fiction writer Ryū Murakami with the American science fiction-thriller film directed by Michael Bay, The Island. What is explored in these works is the dialectic of exhaustion and possibility. The focus of the paper is on the fecund moment inhering in the incapacity of thought to think the possibility of utopia. In terms of the philosophy of education, this hones in on the perceived lack of vision of such a possibility among youth and the failure of the university qua institution to proffer an alternative world to its cohort. To demonstrate this, the paper contrasts both ‘affirmative, transcendent, and authoritarian utopias’ (‘ignoble’ utopias as philosopher Gilles Deleuze calls them) and the possibility of ‘immanent, revolutionary, libertarian utopias’—which we shall consider in terms of ‘absolute reterritorialization’.     

Conceptual ecologies for educational research through Deleuze,Guattari and Whitehead

This article will explore the increasing interest in the application of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Alfred North Whitehead to educational research, for example, as a conceptual underpinning for inquiry in the new materialisms, and/or educational posthumanism. The exploration of this paper is complicated by the fact that Deleuze and Guattari changed their philosophical position in their dual publications, with, for example, their last book: What is Philosophy? representing a substantial departure from their rhizomatic work in, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. This article will explain the changes in position with reference to the mapping of conceptual ecologies that Deleuze and Guattari are describing through their philosophy, and not dualism. Concept creation appears in the analysis of Western philosophy in: What is Philosophy? and as the job of philosophy. In contrast, A Thousand Plateaus presents a whole raft of interrelated concepts that help explain the connections between capitalism and schizophrenia, but do not present ‘concept creation’ as a positive task as such, even though one could impute that they are successfully doing it. This article will explain these changes in positioning of Deleuze and Guattari as a mode of sophisticated conceptual ecology, which takes into account the work that they want their concepts to perform. Transcribed to educational research, ‘concept creation’ is an importantly non-methodological task, which is augmented and expanded with reference to the metaphysics of Whitehead’s process philosophy (a non-method), and how it has been taken up, for example, by Isabelle Stengers in terms of research positioning and science.     

Toward a Social Ontology for Science Education: Introducing Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblages

This essay’s main objective is to develop a theoretical, ontological basis for critical, social justice-oriented science education. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of assemblages, rhizomes, and arborescent structures, this article challenges authoritarian institutional practices, as well as the subject of these practices, and offers a way for critical-social justice-oriented science educators and students to connect with sociopolitical contexts. Through diagramming institutional and community relationships using DG’s theory of assemblages, we envision new ontological spaces that bridge social and material entities. A conceptualization of science education through DG’s philosophy of rhizomes and assemblages allows educators to merge critical, post-foundational perspectives with questions of ontology: not just what exists, but what could exist in terms of human social organizations (governments and community groups), inorganic matter, microorganisms, and plant/animal populations.     

Thinking with Deleuze and Guattari: An exploration of writing as assemblage

We need to keep experimenting with writing to meet the challenges of Deleuze and Guattari’s flattened ontology in the humanities. The paper reports on a small, experimental research project at a university in the north-west of England. The findings are written in an experimental mode, inspired by the Deleuze and Guattarian concept, ‘assemblage’. The experiment is theorised and assessed in a non-reductive way that offers future creative possibilities to other researchers. First, the paper presents a context for the subsequent experimental writing. Some current innovative writerly practice and some theoretical and methodological standpoints are reviewed. Next, this paper presents its theorisation of ‘assemblage’ with particular reference to Deleuze and Guattari’s use of the idea, ‘double articulation’. This approach supports and justifies the author’s schematisation of the textual assemblage into four areas: identity, work, territory and dissolving territory. The author explains how these ideas function within an experimental discursive text and illustrates their possible usage in the experimental text itself. Thus, this paper offers a theoretical justification, an explanation of and an assessment of experimental writing, in addition to the experimental text itself, all of which are of potential interest to researchers in the fields of education and philosophy.     

Deeper than rhizomes,becoming decalcomaniacal: a reflexive response to Murakami and Siegel’s “Becoming Bermuda grass”

In responding to Murakami and Siegel’s “Becoming Bermuda grass,” one is led to reflect on one’s own practice in what becomes an example of reflexivity. Following the authors’ lead of incorporating Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic theory and the art form of decalcomania to reflect on practice, discoveries are made regarding the practice of a middle school science teacher. These reflective discoveries can be used to inform teaching practice in a manner that supports the development of identities of participation.     

Affective Teaching for Effective Learning: A Deleuzian pedagogy for the (corporate era and) Chinese context

In this article I explore the pedagogical value of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s philosophical concepts for helping make an ‘event’ of thought, with a view towards fostering deep learning in Chinese students' learning theory and criticism in a second language. Paying attention to the qualitative role of bodies, humour and creativity alongside an expanded trans-personal concept of ‘educational life forms’ that stretches out to include an affective assemblage of inhuman elements (such as art and technology), I explore how Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophical models provide a ethical alternative to corporate, Confucian and Cartesian models otherwise inhibiting students and teachers in the modern Sino-international university context.     

Action research and the assemblage: engaging Deleuzian pedagogy and inquiry beyond the constraints of the individual and the group in education settings

Drawing upon the author’s previous attempts to engage the work of Deleuze and Deleuze and Guattari with contemporary pedagogic practices and research, this paper offers a conceptually tentative reworking of the theory and practice of action research, both as a means of challenging antecedent positions and as a way of proposing a volatile and incisive approach that, it will be argued, can help in generating a more plural, reflexive and methodologically relevant pedagogy/research praxis. In this, it is hoped that the mobilisation of a Deleuzian conceptualisation of assemblage as a form of inquiry will open up the animation of revitalisation as event.     

Deleuze,action research and rhizomatic growth

Deleuze and his colleagues, particularly Guattari, have had a profound impact on a number of fields of study. The authors argue that their work offers a range of images to help think about and write action research, a way that acknowledges and celebrates the complexities of the sites of action. The article has a divided structure, coherent with the style of Deleuze & Guattari. The authors present some Deleuzian ideas, particularly the concept of rhizomatic growth, and show how they might profitably be used to analyse and write accounts of action research, reflecting the multiplicities of practice, in this case within education. They have shown the potentialities of the ‘rhizome’ as a way to rethink the field of action research, imagining a new epistemology (in which the concepts work, rather than represent) and how the rhizome demands experimental forms of writing ourselves in action research. They show a cartography (of smooth and striated space) that is required to think rhizomatically about action research.     

Michel Serres: Knowledge production and education

Abstract

French poststructuralist philosopher Michel Serres writes about knowledge production throughout his work. He is of particular importance to educationists because the production of knowledge shapes our discipline. But Serres is oftentimes dismissed by educationists and philosophers because of his idiosyncratic style. We argue that his style makes him unique. Serres’s style helps scholars think differently. In the first part of this paper, we will discuss matters of style and argue that Serres’s radical departure from the way in which traditional philosophy is written helps education scholars advance our field. In the second part of this paper, we argue that Serres’s work on knowledge production can be better understood in connection with Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Dewey, Martin Heidegger and Gaston Bachelard. In this paper, we will focus upon three of Serres’s books: Genesis, The Troubadour of Knowledge and The Parasite. Scattered throughout these works are Serres’s ideas on knowledge production.     

Rhizocurrere: a Deleuzo-Guattarian approach to curriculum autobiography

This paper introduces rhizocurrere, a curriculum autobiographical concept I created to chart my efforts to develop place-responsive outdoor environmental education. Rhizocurrere brings together rhizome, a Deleuze and Guattari concept, with currere, Pinar’s autobiographical method for curriculum inquiry. Responding to invitations from Deleuze, Guattari and Pinar, to experiment, I have adapted their ideas to create a philosophical~methodological concept that draws attention to relationships between my pedagogical and curriculum research and the contexts that have shaped my life~work. This paper outlines rhizocurrere, its parent concepts and how I have enacted my attempts to think differently about curricula and pedagogy. The central question is not ‘what is rhizocurrere?’ but rather ‘how does/could rhizocurrere work?’ and ‘what does/might rhizocurrere allow me to do?’     

康德的实践教育学:在“理想”与“科学”之间

康德是伟大的教育学家,他的教育学对后世产生了深远的影响。在康德那里,就教育学的性质而言,教育学是基于实践哲学的实践教育学,没有实践哲学作为根基,也就没有教育学的存在。这一实践教育学又在"理想"与"科学"之间。教育学是"理想",主要体现在康德基于人的所有向善禀赋的完全实现上,而这一实现又只能通过"类的教育"而不能通过"个别的教育",由此康德的教育学具有了一种世界主义的理想色彩。教育学是"科学",主要体现在康德对教育实验、教育方法论的强调,以及对机械的教育学说的批判当中。不过,康德的整全的"人性观"又使得他的"科学"不是严格的"实验科学"。     

Thriving in-between the cracks: Deleuze and guerilla science teaching in Singapore

The radical philosophies of difference articulated by Deleuze and Guattari are just beginning to impinge the field of education although less so within science education. One common thread among the numerous concepts and neologisms (especially the rhizome) that have been coined is the necessity for thinking and acting in what they call ‘experimental’ modes, which shifts our focus onto the eternal process of becoming rather than merely (re)producing states of being. I reflect upon these seemingly utopian ideas in the light of recent educational changes in Singapore aimed at preparing competent citizen–workers for the knowledge economy and globalization. In particular, this paper shows how one elementary science teacher adopted guerilla tactics while negotiating these sometimes conflicting transitions in policies. I argue that neither mandated, top-down reforms nor drastic experimentation by individuals alone are most productive but rather working in the ephemeral in-between spaces of the rhizome, which Deleuze and Guattari had all long championed.

Deleuze and Guattari’s language for new empirical inquiry

Abstract

This paper reviews Deleuze’s theory of language in Logic of Sense, and Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of language in A Thousand Plateaus. In the ontology informed by the Stoics described in those books, human being and language do not exist separately but in a mixture of words and things. The author argues that this flattened ontology of surfaces is incommensurable with the ontology of depth used in conventional humanist qualitative methodology and recommends beginning new empirical inquiry with a concept instead of with method and methodology.     

Mapping not tracing: qualitative educational research with political teeth

In this article, we deploy ideas from Deleuze and Guattari to argue for the importance of engaging in educational research practice designed to be productive (mapping) rather than representational (tracing). First, we introduce the significance of our approach for educational research practice. Second, we unpack key constructs from Deleuze and Guattari required for constructing our argument, and we outline the shape of mapping as productive or transformative research practice. Third, we share critical summaries of several studies that utilized mapping to engage in this kind of research practice. Finally, we discuss the nature, effects, and relevance of mapping as educational research practice.     

Bon mots for bad thoughts

This article questions how the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze has been received and connected to the field of curriculum theory. In an effort to reconnect Deleuze-thought to its political force, this essay commences a series of arguments pertaining to the ways in which the revolutionary thought of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari have been reterritorialized in all-too-conservative ways. Recommencing a connection to the political activism and radical psychoanalysis of Guattari, this essay aims to create a renewed image of Deleuze-thought for curriculum workers and arts-based theorists invested in rethinking the problems of representation to which much educational thought remains fundamentally committed.     

Some Notes on the Relevance of Philosophy to Education

This article discusses the relevance of philosophy to education. More specifically, it asks what it means to speak of a relevance relationship here. Two ways of conceiving this relationship are discussed. First, proposed views of the relevance of philosophy to education generally embody a foundational view of the relationship, expressed in terms of education as resting on philosophy such that support runs in one direction only. Second, a non-foundational relationship is discussed, a relationship that entails mutual dependence of philosophy and education, such that philosophy loses its status as basic.     

Deleuze’s children

Children, the image of the child, and the gendered figures of the girl and the boy are thematics that run through the work of Deleuze and feature prominently in his joint writing with Guattari. However, there are many different children in Deleuze’s writings. Various child figures do distinct things in Deleuze’s work. In this article, I argue that his work on children can be utilized to rethink popular, teleological notions of childhood and ‘growing up’.     

Engagement with research: acknowledging uncertainty in methodology

Method creates relationships in research. It positions everyone and everything in the research process. When method is based on a misrepresentation of science, the relationships formed are technical, closed and self-referential. Using a Deleuze–Guattari framework we are concerned that scientific method in qualitative research solidifies, crystallizes and archaeologizes the research. This paper questions what is being ruled out and deemed as unimportant, or indeed contaminating and fallacious in such research. We argue for the acknowledgement of uncertainty as this allows for more engagement with the research and researched. Deleuze and Guattari argue for multiplicity, connectivity and becoming. This paper calls for acknowledging and mentoring uncertainty at every stage of the teaching and learning of method.     

Desiring machines and nomad spaces: neoliberalism,performativity and becoming in senior secondary drama classrooms

This paper explores Deleuze and Guattari's schizoanalysis in relation to student and teacher becomings and the way these are actualised within the neoliberal and heterosexually striated spaces of the secondary school assemblage. Deleuze and Guattari considered a narrow approach to education problematic and called for creativity as a site of ‘resistance’. Drama is one subject rich with potentiality for students to strengthen their creativity and ‘speak back’ against the neoliberal project. What our research revealed is how the drama classroom is an open, dynamic space where students can embody different identities at a critical time in their adolescent development. What is delimiting about this potentiality is the proclivity of teachers and students, as desiring machines, to conform to the dominant neoliberal culture of competitive performativity. The paper proposes that schizoanalysis offers new insights for mapping complex desire-flows and embodied identities through and against the dominant performative and heterosexist culture.