Deleuze and Evolutionary Theory gathers together contributions by many of the central theorists in studies of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze who have led the way in breaking down the boundaries between philosophical and biological research. They focus on the significance of Deleuze and Guattari's engagements with evolutionary theory across the full range of their work, from the interpretation of Darwin in Difference and Repetition to the symbiotic alliances of wasp and orchid in A Thousand Plateaus. In this way, they explore the anthropological, social and biopolitical significance of the convergences and divergences between philosophy and evolutionary science.
Introduction: Historical Formations and Organic Forms / Michael James Bennett and Tano Posteraro
1. Unnatural Nuptials / Barry Allen
2. The Egg: Deleuze between Darwin and Ruyer / Jon Roffe
3. Framing Sexual Selection: Elizabeth Grosz’s work on Deleuze, Darwin and Feminism / Erin Hortle and Hannah Stark
4. Deleuze, Developmental Systems Theory, and the Philosophy of Nature / Michael James Bennett
5. Deterritorialisation and Creative Involution: A Note on Guattari and Deleuze / Paul-Antoine Miquel
6. Hydrosocial Becomings: Evolutionary Perspectives on Water Assemblages and Maya Kingship / Johan Normark
7. Against Social Evolution: Deleuze and Guattari’s Social Topology / Daniel W. Smith
8. Epigenesis and the Outside / Claire Colebrook
Michael James Bennett is a Faculty Fellow in the Humanities at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of Deleuze and Ancient Greek Physics: The Image of Nature (Bloomsbury 2017) and writes on the intersections between twentieth-century continental thought, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of biology.
Tano Posteraro is an SSHRC Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Concordia University. He is co-editor, with Michael Bennett, of Deleuze and Evolutionary Theory (Edinburgh University Press, 2019) and author of a number of articles and chapters on biological themes in Bergson, Whitehead, Ruyer and Deleuze.
"Packed with searching and detailed analyses, this volume brings the study of Deleuze's relations with biology – that on which he relied, but also contemporary developments – into its maturity. From Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire to Darwin, Ruyer, Oyama, and many others, from genomics to epigenetics and beyond, the book's breadth provides constant provocations to thought."
– John Protevi, Louisiana State University