What do Deleuze and Guattari mean by a “minor literature”? (1598) How is it different from a “great literature” or a literature in a minor language?
What were some special problems faced by Kafka in his choice of language? (1598)
What are some of the qualities of “minor” literature, according to Deleuze and Guattari? (1599-1600)
When was this book published? What would Gates, Said, Kolodny, et alia have made of these definitions?
What according to Deleuze and Guattari should a would-be writer do who has been born into a “great” literature? (1600)
What models does he give of symbolical reterritorialization, and why are these chosen? (1600-1601)
What linguistic problems are faced by immigrants, in France and elsewhere? (1601) To the question of how to remedy this, what metaphorical answers does he give? (1601)
from A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, from “Introduction: Rhizome”
How do Deleuze and Guattari describe their writing? (1601, lines of articulation or segmentarity, strat and territories) The nature of a book itself? (1602, assemblage, connected with other assemblages, we will never ask what a book means)
Can you see a relationship between their views and contemporary approaches to the "book arts"?
Which older definitions of books and writing are no longer relevant? (1603, “Writing has nothing to do with signifying. It has to do with surveying, mapping, even realms that are yet to come.”)
How do their views resemble those of others we have read, such as Barthes or Jauss? What has happened to the notion of a "reader"?
What do these authors think have been the deleterious effects of the metaphor of a tree in linguistics? What metaphor would they substitute? (1603-1604, radial system or fascicular root, 1603, still implies writing)
What kind of fragmentation do they believe leads to unity--and thus another form of (undesirable) totality? (1604) Which authors have been interpreted along these lines? (Joyce, Nietzsche)
How should one write? (1604)
What is a rhizome, as they define it? (1605, connects any part to any other part) What does it mean to say that “It has neither beginning nor end, but always a middle from which it grows and which it overspills”? (1605)
What does it mean to say that a rhizome is made up of plateaus? What do the authors see as good in a plateau, so-defined? (1606)
How do the authors describe their own writing practices as they attempt to compose a rhizome? Have they succeeded, in your view? (1606)
What is their general opinion of the importance of lexical and typographical play? (1606)
What is the relationship between “the nomadic” and the values they espouse? (1607)
What political implications do they believe their theories/program may have? (1607) What is the term usually given to anti-statist principles? (anarchist)
To what forms of literature and art do these definitions apply, according to their examples? (1607-1608) Are there potential examples which they omit?
What final statements on and image of the creative process ends the essay? (the book has never comprehended the outside, 1608; kinetic, process-driven) Is it successful in the realm of art or poetry? Are there issues it leaves unresolved?
Can you relate the values of this essay to those of Lyotard and/or Baudrillard? To other aspects of what is considered “postmodern”?
<< Florence Boos'
Study Questions Index
Florence Boos' Faculty Page >>