Of what critical importance is Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy to our ability to think ecologically or to address environmental catastrophe effectively? What do Deleuze and Guattari mean when they write that “philosophy . . . turns its back against itself so as to summon forth a new earth, a new people”? How does philosophy foresee a time when the earth “passes into the pure plane of immanence of a Being-thought, of a Nature-thought”? Does “Nature-thought” enter philosophy only when philosophy thinks geographically, that is, in terms of geography’s real (versus history’s transcendental) territoriality? How do the emerging concepts as “geophilosophy,” and Guattari’s “three ecologies,” mesh with such long-evolving Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts as “rhizome,” “becoming,” “territory,” “haecceity,” “plane of immanence,” “chaos,” “nomadology,” etc? Does this mélange of concepts create an “Ecology-thought,” thought that might itself be regarded as adaptive, as creative evolution immanent to (an earth-based) philosophy?
Moreover, if philosophy must escape the exhausted national and historical traditions of French and German philosophy and become refreshingly earth-based, it will have to call on art, or transform itself artistically. How, then, does recent nature writing of an expressly “bioregional” nature (as opposed to a national literature) help philosophy to “summon forth a new earth”?
On a more pragmatic note, what environmental ethics might we derive from Deleuze and Guattari’s ecophilosophy? E.g.: How might the concept of “becoming-animal” effectively challenge the idea of animal rights? How might the concept of deterritorialization effectively challenge the idea of wilderness conservation and/or land reclamation? How might the concept of nomadology effectively mobilize and advance aboriginal land-claim strategy? What, if any, critical case studies of environmental disaster and recovery have put Deleuze and Guattari’s eco-thinking to use, and how?
You are invited to submit essays on these or related topics, themes, and questions.
Deadline: September 15, 2007
Send to dianne.chisholm@ualberta.ca