Deleuze and Becoming

Description

Deleuze's concept of 'becoming' provides the key to his notoriously complex metaphysics, yet it has not been systematized until now. Bankston tracks the concept of becoming and its underlying temporal processes across Deleuze's writings, arguing that expressions of becoming(s) appear in two modes of temporality: an appropriation of Nietzsche's eternal return (the becoming of the event), and Bergsonian duration (the becoming of sensation). Overturning the criticisms launched by Zizek and Badiou, with conceptual encounters between Bergson, Nietzsche, Leibniz, Borges, Klossowski, and Proust, the newly charted concept of double becoming provides a roadmap to the totality of Deleuze's philosophy. Bankston systematizes Deleuze's multi-mirrored universe where form and content infinitely refract in a vital kaleidoscope of becoming.

Samantha Bankston has published on continental philosophy and art and translated seminars given by Gilles Deleuze, is the translator of Anne Sauvagnargues' book, Deleuze and Art (Bloomsbury, 2013), and the author of the forthcoming book, Deleuze and Zizek.

Although 'becoming' is one of the fundamental concepts in Deleuze's philosophy, Deleuze and Becoming is the first book to provide a systematic and detailed analysis of the new components Deleuze assigns to this ancient notion. Samantha Bankston shows how the concept evolved considerably throughout Deleuze's career, and argues that it received its most profound expression in Deleuze's readings of two 'temporal logics': Bergson's duration and Nietzsche's eternal return. Along the way, Bankston provides insightful appraisals of various thinkers (Leibniz, Bachelard, Zizek, Badiou) and writers (Borges, Klossowski, Proust) that influenced or engaged with Deleuze's work. Bankston's writing is admirably lucid, and Deleuze and Becoming is destined to become a standard reference work on one of Deleuze's most complex concepts. -- Daniel W. Smith, Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University, USA The fact that clarity and theoretical rigour is not lost over the course of a book ... ensures that Bankston's work will become a major reference point for any serious engagement with Deleuze's overall system of thought. -- Annual Review of Critical Psychology on Deleuze and Psychology * Alan Bristow *