Deleuze and Slowness - by Krzysztof Skonieczny (Hardcover)

About the Book

The first book-length treatment of the problem of slowness in Deleuze's philosophy and its uses in understanding contemporary challenges concerning the subject, politics and the environment.

Book Synopsis

This book diverges from the conventional interpretation of Deleuze as a philosopher of speed or even accelerationism, delving instead into the minor but critical themes of slowness - from idiocy to catatonia - in his works.

Advocating for a pragmatic reading of Deleuze source material, Deleuze and Slowness utilises his thought to address urgent challenges in contemporary political and social philosophy, particularly the issue of acceleration in its subjective, socio-political, and ecological dimensions. The first part discusses the significance of "slowness" and introduces the problem of social acceleration, exploring the relationship of Deleuze's thought with theorists rarely invoked in Deleuzian scholarship, such as Martha Nussbaum and Hartmut Rosa. Using a wide range of examples and sources including Heinrich von Kleist and Madame de La Fayette, the second part of the book delves deeper into the three manifestations of slowness in Deleuze's philosophy: the conceptual personae of the idiot, the animal, and the catatonic. These personae and the concepts they help develop are explored as potential strategies of active resistance against the facets of social acceleration.

Radically opposing enamourment with speed and efficiency that characterises the present day, Krzysztof Skonieczny shows how a Deleuzian theory of slowness can inspire productive resistance in the three areas that have been most vulnerable to omnipresent acceleration: our subjectivity, profoundly changed by the accelerating pace of life; our socio-political milieu, ruled by corporate efficiency; and our relationship to the environment, quickly heading towards catastrophe.

Review Quotes

In a digital era defined by acceleration, blistering pace, and relentless speed, a book on
slowness is profoundly untimely. By addressing exhaustion and overexertion, this work
offers a symptomatology, delivering a shock to thought and making a vital contribution
to Deleuze scholarship. It provides a necessary rupture in the unthinkingness of our
contemporary moment
Joff P. N. Bradley, Professor of English and Philosophy, Teikyo University, Japan

In an age of perpetual acceleration, this book asks what it means to slow down intensively, not as nostalgia or inertia, but as a strategy of creation and survival. Moving from the myth of Deleuze's "accelerationism" to a new reading of his ethics and politics, it explores how slowness can recompose bodies, thoughts, and collectives. With chapters on Kafka's "idiots," the cow as a figure of planetary resistance, and the catatonic as the last refuge of refusal, Deleuze and Slowness offers a strikingly contemporary Deleuze, one who resists the present by slowing it down.
Alex Taek-Gwang Lee, Professor of Cultural Studies in the School of Communication, Kyung Hee University, South Korea

About the Author

Krzysztof Skonieczny is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of "Artes Liberales," University of Warsaw, Poland, where he is a member of the Techno-Humanities Lab. He is the author of Immanence and the Animal: A Conceptual Inquiry (2020) and co-editor (with Szymon Wróbel) of Living and Thinking in the Post-Digital World: Theories, Experiences, Explorations (2021) and Regimes of Capital in the Post-Digital Age (2023).