Understanding Deleuze

An accessible introduction to the work of this influential and challenging French thinker.

A genuine attempt to think differently, Gilles Deleuze''s work challenges, provokes and frustrates. Surprisingly practical as well as innovative, it is now being seen as a ''must read'' for students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences. Claire Colebrook''s Understanding Deleuze offers a comprehensive and very accessible introduction to his work. hink differently. It is built on the notion of an immanent ethics: how can we have a political and ethical theory without some external foundation such as the subject or morality? He argues that the only way we can do this is with a theory of the virtual, and he sees all life (not just cyberculture) as virtual. Deleuze goes further than Foucault or Derrida in questioning the boundaries of the subject and knowledge. For Deleuze perception extends beyond the human, to animals, machines and microorganisms.

Deleuze''s writing is challenging and hard to read, and so far there is no introduction to his work. Claire Colebrook''s primer offers an accessible introduction to the whole Deleuzian oeuvre, including the work he did with Guattari.