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Plateaus - New Directions in Deleuze Studies

Incorporeal MattersBetween Deleuze and New Materialism

By Janae Sholtz

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Published 31 May 2027

About this book

Can a new image of thought – imageless, affective and diagrammatic – revive the ethical and political stakes of Deleuzian feminism?

  • Opens a critical dialogue between new materialist feminism and Deleuzean philosophy that clarifies the importance of incorporeality and the prioritisation of epistemology for ethical and political action
  • Evaluates new materialist critiques of feminist traditions from leading figures such as Braidotti, Bennet, Barad, and Grosz to propose creative alternative methods of integrating feminist theories for stronger ethico-political impact
  • Proposes the importance of affective agency in the development of thought by reading Deleuze’s Spinoza against both feminist new materialism and trends in Deleuze scholarship

Janae Sholtz argues that returning to Deleuze’s elaborations of thought, sense and conceptuality is necessary for meeting ethical and political challenges and for conceiving our relation to relational ontology.

Sholtz interrogates how key concepts – such as sense, the virtual and abstract machines – have been sidelined in favour of more tangible materialist frameworks and argues for a vital idealism to complement vital materialism. Bridging philosophical, feminist and political terrains, she proposes an ‘imageless image of thought’ as a new way to conceptualise thinking – dynamic, open-ended and aligned with affect, matter and the cosmos. In turn, she shows why Deleuze’s emphasis on the incorporeal is crucial for thinking about socio-political issues and human responsibility.

Table of contents

Acknowledgments
Illustrations

Introduction: Deleuze, New Materialism, Feminism, and Their Problematic Ideas

Part I: Implications of New Materialism for Ontology, Ethics, and Agency
Chapter 1: Cartographies upon Cartographies
First Cartography: Against the Linguistic Turn, The Body Strikes Back
Second Cartography: A Transatlantic Divide
Third Cartography: Figures of the Posthuman

Chapter 2: Return to the Real - Ontological Commitments
Ontological Figurations
Relations, Processes and Materialisations of Meaning
​​​​​​​A Constitutive Blindness

Chapter 3: Messy Materialism - Deleuze’s Lineage?
​​​​​​​From Deleuze with Love
​​​​​​Of One or Many Deleuzes
​​​​​​​Vitalism, Of Matter or Men

Part II: What’s Deleuze Got to Do with It? Resources for A New Idealism
Chapter 4: Who’s Afraid of Incorporeality?
​​​​​​​Is Deleuze a Materialist, New or Otherwise?
​​​​​​Critique of a New Materialist Explanation of Meaning
​​​​​​​Building a New Idealism: Genetic Ideas, Strange Agencies and Contemplations

Chapter 5: Revelations and Revolutions of Immanence
​​​​​​​Mattering of Meaning; Meaning Mattering
​​​​​​​Evolution of Immanence
​​​​​​​Making Space for Value Determinations

Part III. Diagramming a New Image of Thought
Chapter 6: Following the Flows - Abstract Machines, Agency, and Artisanry
​​​​​​​Incorporeal Transformations: Abstract Machines and Diagrammaticism
​​​​​​​Divination and Following the Lines
​​​​​​​Diagrammatic Thinking: Thought without Image
​​​​​​​Back to the Earth: Geophilosophy, Stratification, and Metallurgy

Chapter 7: Thought’s Expression - The Imperceptible, the Infinite, and the Affective
​​​​​​Cosmic Breakaway: Elemental, the Imperceptible, and the Infinite
​​​​​​Affective Bridge: Matter and Form of Expression
​​​​​​To Sketch a Diagram: Drawing the Strata of a New Image of Thought
​​​​​​The Cosmic Artisan: Style of Thought, Manner of Being

Chapter 8: Diagram of a Deleuzian Feminist
​​​​​​Images of Diagrammatic Thought
​​​​​​Lessons from the Diagram, thinking-being-feeling
​​​​​​Concluding Sketches of a Feminist Framework

Bibliography
Index

About the author

Janae Sholtz

Janae Sholtz is Professor of Philosophy, Director of General Education, and Coordinator of Women’s and Gender Studies at Alvernia University, PA. She is a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg and an Extraordinary Professor in the Centre for Identity and Diversity at North-West University, South Africa. She is the author of The Invention of a People, Heidegger and Deleuze on Art and the Political (Edinburgh UP 2015), co-editor of Deleuze and Cosmology: Between Art, Philosophy and the Sciences (Edinburgh UP 2026), co-editor of French and Italian Stoicisms: From Sartre to Agamben (Bloomsbury UP 2020) and co-editor of Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Feminism (Edinburgh Press 2019). She is currently working on a project on love, death and the fragility of relations.

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