Schizoanalysis for beginners: an introduction to Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus

---

Why do people do things that are ‘wrong’ even when they appear to know better?  Why are societies repressive?  How does fascism arise – is it, as some have argued, because people actually desire their own repression?  Is reason capable of guiding desires, is it able to control them even – and should it?  How is a better world possible?  

Such questions have been central to philosophy since the time of Plato and are often some of the most difficult to answer, whilst simultaneously being some of the most important.  In the early twentieth century, new answers to such questions began to arise that drew on the work of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.  By the end of the twentieth century, however, such answers seemed to many to be not only wrong but dangerous.  Yet the questions remained, now even more perplexing than they were before.

In the book Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, a critique of psychoanalysis and marxism is made and a new theoretical model (called schizoanalysis) with which to understand and change society is offered.  

The book, written in the early 1970s and highly influenced by the political events of 1968, is often taken to be a key moment in twentieth-century ‘critical thought’. (‘Critical thought’ is that form of philosophy that directly engages with questions arising from the political and social world, with its roots in the ideas of Marx and Freud.)   

Anti-Oedipus is, however, a very difficult text to understand, for numerous reasons, and often leaves readers baffled as to its meaning, purpose or reputation.  The aim of this course is: firstly, to demystify Anti-Oedipus and enable it to be read with a critical and questioning mind; secondly, to present and critically discuss some of the key concepts contained in the book.

Session lecture notes and handouts are available in the Course Materials folder on Google (linked at the end of this post) and the basic lecture notes are also available on my academia.edu page.

Course Outline

There are 6 introductory lectures, after which the sessions are guided by the group’s interests.  The session outlines are as follows, although they are subject to adjustment if the group decides it wants to focus on different issues. 

 Session 1 – The Black Horse and the White Horse – a brief outline of the relationship between desire and reason, from Plato to Freud

Session 2 –  The Unconscious is a Factory – the problem of desire and lack – Freud, Lacan and the ‘schizophrenia’ of Deleuze and Guattari

Session 3 – Desiring Machines Everywhere – the three syntheses of production and anti-production, a new model for ‘repression’

Session 4 – Oedipus the Colonist – the critique of the Freudian model of psychoanalysis

Session 5 – ‘All history is the history of desire in struggle’ – the critique of the Marxist model of historical materialism

Session 6 – The non-fascist life – the experimental model of schizoanalysis

Reading List and Resources

Primary text = Anti-Oedipus

Secondary text = A Thousand Plateaus

No long formal ‘reading list’ will be given, however, resources such as lecture notes and reading materials are available online in this Google drive folder.