Deleuze, Guattari and the Machine in Early Christianity: Schizoanalysis, Affect and Multiplicity
Ebook
Expanding the impact of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's philosophy to the disciplines of Christian Origins and Christian theology, this original study makes the case for understanding early Christianity through such Deleuzioguattarian concepts as the 'rhizome', the 'machine', the 'body without organs' and the 'multiplicity', using the theoretical tool of schizoanalysis to do so.
The reconstruction of the historical emergence of early Christianity, Bradley H. McLean argues, has been constrained by traditional assumptions about its historical and transcendental origins. These assumptions are ill-suited to theorizing the genesis, change and transformation of early Christianity in the first three centuries of the Common Era. To capture the dynamism of early Christianity, McLean applies Guattari's concept of the 'machine', to the analysis of early Christianity. Arguing that machines are both an unnoticed dimension of early Christianity, and a major analytical tool for the discipline, McLean highlights the potential of the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari to challenge and reconfigure not just our knowledge of early Christianity, but all aspects of Hellenistic Judaism, and the Greco-Roman world, as well as our understanding of Jesus of Nazareth and the Jesus movement.
By subverting the concept of a single transcendental or historical origin of Christianity, this book facilitates new forms of dialogue and cooperation between Christians and co-religionists.
Original application of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the machine to the origins of early Christianity.
Expands the relationship between Deleuze, Guattari and Christian theology to include the origins of early Christianity
Uses Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of the machine and schizoanalysis to explore the dilemma of Christian origins
Facilitates new forms of dialogue and cooperation between Christians across the world via Deleuze and Guattari's rhizomatic approach
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Rise of the Christ Machines
2. Desiring Production and Early Christianities
3. The Rhizome: Multiplicities and the Virtual Dimension of Christ Groups
4. The Autoproduction of a Body of Christ without Organs
5. Territorializations and Deterritorializations: On Becoming Outlandish
6. Deterritorialization in the Gospels: A Typology of Lines
7. The Stratification of Christ Groups in the Despotic Socius
8. Christ Groups as Social Assemblages and Abstract Machines
9. The God of Religion and the Schizo God
10. The Myth of Eve: Falling Into, and Out of, Delusion
11. On Several Regimes of Signs and Several Christs
12. The Despotic Christ and the Signifying Despotic Regime of Signs
13. The Passional Christ and the Passional Subjective Regime of Signs
14. What Can Christ's Body Do?
15. Molecular Becomings of Christ: Becoming-woman
16. Christ Becoming-animal: An Affair of Sorcery
17. Christ's Becomings-imperceptible: Martyrological, Magical, and Cosmic
18. The Nomad Jesus and the Galilean War Machine
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
McLean's book has something for everyone. Scholars of Early Christianity will find here an array of conceptual tools that will no doubt open up new insights into the origins of the “Christ machines.” Scholars of Deleuze and Guattari will find excellent examples of the coupling of their literary machine to the texts and practices of “Christ groups” in the first three centuries BCE. And everyone else will find an introduction to both fields that is accessible and fun to read.
This book uses the work of Deleuze and Guattari – specifically the concept of the rhizome – rethink and retheorize approaches to the history of the emergence of Christianity. In doing so, it also takes us deep into the expanded universe of Deleuze and Guattari's thought.
McLean provides us with a much-needed Deleuzian voice for reading Early Christian literature. Whereas scholarship often interprets Early Christian literature with unspoken philosophical assumptions, McLean explicitly combines Deleuzian concepts (multiplicity, machines, the body without organs, deterritorialization, becoming-woman) with this literature, offering new, relevant, and challenging assemblages.
- Title: Deleuze, Guattari and the Machine in Early Christianity: Schizoanalysis, Affect and Multiplicity
- Author: Bradley McLean
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350233867, 9781350233881, 1350233889, 1350233862
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350233867
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-11T01:27:52Z