The concept of difference occupies a central place in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. In this work, David Bright explores how Deleuze’s difference can be put to work in critical qualitative research. The book explores research and writing as a creative process of dynamically pursuing problems. Following Deleuze’s advice not to think of problems in terms of solutions, the book offers important methodological insights into the ways the subjects, objects, and processes of research might be conceived and represented in writing, exploring the problem of thinking and writing about difference in complex ways without reducing thought to static representations of identity. Bright uses the example of foreign teachers and international schooling in Vietnam to show us how Deleuze’s difference can be used in critical qualitative research, demonstrating the limits of traditional ways of thinking about difference in learning and teaching. Exploring Deleuze's Philosophy of Difference is a book that will interest all those with an interest in the application of Deleuze’s philosophy to critical qualitative research. Perfect for courses such as: Critical Qualitative Research | Qualitative Inquiry | Post-qualitative Inquiry | Deleuze | Difference | Identity | Ethnography | English Language Teaching | International Education | Writing as a Method of Inquiry

A new edition of this introduction to Deleuze's seminal work, Difference and Repetition, with new material on intensity, science and action and new engagements with Bryant, Sauvagnargues, Smith, Somers-Hall and de Beistegui.

From the early 1960s until his death, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) wrote many influential works on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. One of Deleuze's main philosophical projects was a systematic inversion of the traditional relationship between identity and difference. This Deleuzian philosophy of difference is the subject of Jeffrey A. Bell's Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos. Bell argues that Deleuze's efforts to develop a philosophy of difference are best understood by exploring both Deleuze's claim to be a Spinozist, and Nietzsche's claim to have found in Spinoza an important precursor. Beginning with an analysis of these claims, Bell shows how Deleuze extends and transforms concepts at work in Spinoza and Nietzsche to produce a philosophy of difference that promotes and, in fact, exemplifies the notions of dynamic systems and complexity theory. With these concepts at work, Deleuze constructs a philosophical approach that avoids many of the difficulties that linger in other attempts to think about difference. Bell uses close readings of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Whitehead to illustrate how Deleuze's philosophy is successful in this regard and to demonstrate the importance of the historical tradition for Deleuze. Far from being a philosopher who turns his back on what is taken to be a mistaken metaphysical tradition, Bell argues that Deleuze is best understood as a thinker who endeavoured to continue the work of traditional metaphysics and philosophy.

Throughout his career, Deleuze developed a series of original philosophies of time and applied them successfully to many different fields. Now James Williams presents Deleuze's philosophy of time as the central concept that connects his philosophy as a whole. Through this conceptual approach, the book covers all the main periods of Deleuze's philosophy: the early studies of Hume, Nietzsche, Kant, Bergson and Spinoza, the two great philosophical works, Difference and Repetition and Logic of Sense, the Capitalism and Schizophrenia works with Guattari, and the late influential studies of literature, film and painting.The result is an important reading of Deleuze and the first full interpretation of his philosophy of time.

Presents important accounts of Nietzsche's philosophy. The author shows how Nietzsche began a new way of thinking which breaks with the dialectic as a method and escapes the confines of philosophy itself.

By extending Gilles Deleuze's philosophy through diverse literary tracts, this book develops an account of what it means to be different and enters important contemporary debates about identity and the nature of solitude. At the same time, the book elaborates a limited philosophy. From unusual writings and rare human experiences, James Brusseau forges compelling understandings that scrupulously preserve his subjects' irregularities. The resulting philosophic narrative remains strictly localized; it elucidates narrow bands of experience and refuses broadening generalizations. The book's first section rigorously elaborates Deleuze's pioneering notion of difference. The second part conceives certain individuals as embodying difference and then employs the conception to elude difficulties blocking recent work on subjectivity. Part three combines insights from the first two parts with Isabelle Eberhardt's North African travel journals. In Eberhardt, Brusseau finds sexualities and a solitude that only Deleuze's unique notion of difference can explain. An energetic interaction between philosophy and literature drives this book. Brusseau weaves back and forth between the genres, engaging diverse literatures not only to embody but also to refine his philosophic positions. The literary authors he discusses range from Shakespeare and Fitzgerald to Borges, Bataille, and Eberhardt.

An increasing number of scholars, students and practitioners of psychology are becoming intrigued by the ideas of Gilles Deleuze and of Felix Guattari. This book aims to be a critical introduction to these ideas, which have so much to offer psychology in terms of new directions as well as critique. Deleuze was one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century and a figure whose ideas are increasingly influential throughout the humanities and social sciences. His work, particularly his collaborations with psychoanalyst Guattari, focused on the articulation of a philosophy of difference. Rejecting mainstream continental philosophy just as much as the orthodox analytical metaphysics of the English-speaking world, Deleuze proposed a positive and passionate alternative, bursting at the seams with new concepts and new transformations. This book overviews the philosophical contribution of Deleuze including the project he developed with Guattari. It goes on to explore the application of these ideas in three major dimensions of psychology: its unit of analysis, its method and its applications to the clinic. Deleuze and Psychology will be of interest to students and scholars of psychology and those interested in continental philosophy, as well as psychological practitioners and therapists.