Deleuze and Haraway

In this video I explain why Haraway is off the mark in her criticisms and Deleuze and Guattari and examine the problem of becoming-animal and raises questions about the way it ought to be thought about.

[@xsanitarx]

Your critique of Manuel DeLanda and Jane Bennet, in your book (AT&M), really helped me to understand the actual stakes of D&G's project. When completing my master's degree, I delved into DeLanda's version of assemblage theory (and several 'new materialist' theories and felt disappointed. I think his approach to it doesn't only lack politics, but even ethics. Your corrections (re-introduction of desire and the problem of strata, expressive materialism, machinic NOT mechanic ontology) were crucial game changer. I am using it now in my dissertation methodology. Now this analysis of Haraway will help me even more. Thank you once again!
PS: I am very curious whether you have read Andrew Culp's essay, 'Dark Deleuze.' It is somewhat tendentious, but in my opinion has some valuable insights for deterritorializing academic reception of Deleuze.

[@stacylo5464]

Thanks for sharing such valuable insights into D&G's work via Haraway!

[@andreahurst5161]

Thanks, Ian. You have a wonderful gift for making D&G accessible without losing their profundity!

[@ianbuchanan3199]

Many thanks!

[@marc6003]

Great video, thanks Ian. The fact that the concept of becoming-animal has a hermeneutic dimension appears to be a very important point, Jameson is definitely on to something. It seems the wolf-man as interpreted by Freud and then criticised by D&G indicates a (hermeneutic) will to avoid reductive interpretations, either to mechanism or to subjectivism. This wouldn't mean they reject structures wholesale, but it would be a problematisation of structure formation, how structures are formed.

[@ianbuchanan3199]

@@marc6003 thanks 👍

[@inlieuofsense9521]

great work, ive also read her reading of ATP with a raised eyebrow, but couldnt have put it that clearly. Also i hope you elucidate further about becoming animal as hermeneutic instead of ethological (their discussion of sorcery is giving me pause here)

[@ianbuchanan3199]

@@inlieuofsense9521 I do in the talk I gave in Belgrade last year, the video can be found on this channel too

[@user-vp2nt8jd5x]

Great talk! Thanks for sharing 🤗

[@paulpalacios561]

Great work Ian. Thanks for sharing your interests

[@janaesholtz9656]

Nice job! Doing important work here.

[@ianbuchanan3199]

The full text with references can be found here www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/dlgs.2024.0564

[@arbabekteshi4848]

I am immensely grateful for the talk as per usual. But, am I wrong to assume that you have not engaged with animals as a long-term volunteer? From my experience as one, I can honestly say that precisely because of human exceptionalism animals are not desexed (spayed or neutered feel more appropriate to me though), - a 10+ years dog with swollen testicles still not neutered, clearly suffering because of it, while his family takes pride in him being “whole” is painful to watch. This is just one of the many cases I have seen of pets being abused to be sexual (without necessarily mating) and consequently forming all kinds of cancer and psychological problems. Lastly, the biological component of animals/pets being able to reproduce at incredible speed when compared to humans I feel is completely bypassed.

[@ianbuchanan3199]

@@arbabekteshi4848 I'm not sure I understand you. But to clarify I certainly think humans have an obligation to care well for animals. My point is that in recognising our self appointed exceptionalism we should also shoulder the responsibility to care for animals.

[@aleanbh3808]

Humans reproduce differently from other mammals such as dogs due to our evolution of bipedalism and larger brains in that order. And we have coevolved with dogs for at least 30,000 years (eg they can read human gestures, we can tell things about a dog from its bark ).

[@sahilsasidharan4634]

I agree with most of what you said (though I am not well-versed with D&G myself) but I am not sure how your interpretation of the ethical problems of keeping dogs as pets is also not an anthropogenetic one, when possibly one cannot know otherwise, and not governing their lives in a careful way might also become equally, if not more, unethical given the history of co-evolution of our species.

[@aleanbh3808]

Yes, we domesticated dogs (wolves) before any other animals- 40,000 to 20,000 years ago, according to the archeological and fossil records. (By contrast we domesticated sheep pigs horses chickens etc only in the last 10,000 years.)