http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10260219708455911
+ From: Jeffrey Cohen <jjcohen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
+ Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 07:39:14 -0500 (EST)
This may interest some. Posted with permission.
JJC
________________________________________________________________________
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen =09=09 (202)994-5338 fax (202)994-7915
Associate Director, Program in Human Sciences, George Washington U
=09=09 http://www.gwu.edu/~humsci
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 95 13:31:03 -0600
From: Biodun o. Iginla <iginl001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: jjcohen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: imaginary geographies
[...]
Gilles Deleuze: In Memoriam (1925-1995): =CAA Personal Note=CA=CA=CA
Biodun Iginla=CAUniversity of Minnesota Press=CA=CA=CA
Copyright @ Biodun Iginla (1995)=CA=CA
(Prepared simultaneously for Social Text, boundary 2, The Minnesota Daily=
, =20
and Lingua Franca .)=CA=CA
Michel Foucault once said: "This century will perhaps be Deleuzian one day.=
"=CA=CA
On Saturday, November 4, 1995, I lost the only intellectual father I ever h=
ad:=20
Gilles Deleuze committed suicide by jumping out the window of his apartment=
on=20
avenue Niel in the 17th arrondisement of Paris. He was 70 years old. A grad=
uate=20
school friend of mine (he had also studied with Deleuze) who happened to be=
in=20
Paris (he's a French citizen but resides in Missoula, Montana) called me in=
=20
Minneapolis to tell me about the event a few hours after the Paris media pi=
cked=20
it up. I was not all that surprised about his suicide. I knew he had been=
=20
suffering from severe respiratory problems ever since one of his lungs coll=
apsed
several years back. And I also knew that for about one and half years befor=
e his
suicide he had been tied to a respiratory machine and told not to receive a=
ny=20
visitors and to cut back on his writing. And I also knew he recently had a=
=20
tracheotomy. But I was surprised about the manner in which he committed sui=
cide:
defenestration. =CA=CA
Uncannily, on Saturday afternoon, before I got the call from Paris, while=
=20
discussing Yitzak Rabin's assassination (and other dismaying world events t=
his=20
fin-de-millennium) with Hilary Radner, perhaps my closest friend (and Deleu=
zian=20
sister) in the US at this point, I told her that if only I could call Deleu=
ze=20
right then in Paris to ask him his opinion of the current epistemic rupture=
that
we're experiencing on all registers and levels, I would, but that alas, he'=
s=20
more or less sequestered, by his doctors, from contact with the outside wor=
ld.=CA=CA
One crisp but pleasant fall evening in October 1990, I visited Deleuze at t=
hat=20
apartment. He had just moved in. Two months before, in August, when he was =
still
living on rue de Bizerte (also in the 17th), in response to a desperate ple=
a=20
from me to intervene, on my behalf, with J=8Er=99me Lindon, his formidable =
publisher
at =83ditions de Minuit, on the matter of securing, for the University of=
=20
Minnesota Press, the English-language rights to his Pourparlers (a collect=
ion=20
of his interviews), he had written me a letter (always in longhand and alwa=
ys=20
promptly and generously) by way of apology, to explain to me why the=20
English-language rights to Pourparlers was being picked up by Columbia=20
University Press instead of by Minnesota Press. I had thought I had the=20
inalienable filial right to secure those rights, because after all, Minneso=
ta=20
Press had published eight of his books for the Anglophone world, and I was =
(and=20
still am) his student (why not say it, his "son," clearly "oedipal," agains=
t the
grain, as it were, of L'Anti-Oedipe ) and currently, his editor. He explain=
ed in
that letter that the idea for Pourparlers had come from Columbia Press, so=
they
had the dibs for the English-language rights on it. I had told him in my pl=
ea=20
that I would be in Paris that October after the Frankfurt Book Fair, and th=
at I=20
would very much like to visit him. In his letter, he said he also would ver=
y=20
much like to see me after an intervening fourteen years. He was alone when =
I=20
arrived. He met me by the elevator and led me into the spacious (for Paris)=
and=20
tastefully decorated apartment. We sat around for two hours in the living =
room=20
and drank red wine and chatted about the old days (he had retired from teac=
hing=20
in 1987) and about contemporary events (specifically, about what he called =
"the=20
terrorism of the Western State machine against the people of the third-worl=
d,"=20
which, as he knew well, had a strong resonance for me, an American citizen =
of=20
third-world heritage). He reminisced about some of his old students, the on=
es he
had lost contact with, about whatever might have become of them. He said=
=20
unfortunately, he didn't--that he couldn't possibly -- remain in contact wi=
th=20
all of his students. "There were so many of you," he said. When I saw that=
he=20
was getting tired, I decided to leave. I said goodbye. He walked me to the=
=20
elevator. He shook my hand vigorously. I took the elevator downstairs, and=
=20
disappeared into the crisp but pleasant Paris night. Of course, I had no id=
ea=20
that I would be seeing him for the last time.=CA=CA
I first met Gilles Deleuze in the spring of 1975 at Universit=8E de Paris (=
VIII)=20
(then at) Vincennes. I was attending his seminar on the philosophy of the=
=20
rhizome. I was then a graduate student in comparative literature at the=20
University of Minnesota. As far as I can recall with certainty, the followi=
ng is
one of the first coherent concepts that I grasped in the early days of that=
=20
seminar:=CA=CA
A book has neither object nor subject; it is made up of variously formed=20
matters, and very different dates and speeds. To attribute the book to a su=
bject
is to overlook this working of matters, and the exteriority of their relati=
ons.=20
It is to fabricate a God to explain geological movements. In a book, as in =
all=20
things, there are lines of articulation or segmentarity, strata and territo=
ries;
but also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialization and=20
destratification. Comparative rates of flow on these lines produce phenomen=
a of=20
relative slowness and viscosity, or, on the contrary, of acceleration and=
=20
rupture. All this, lines and measurable speeds, constitutes an assemblage. =
A=20
book is an assemblage of this kind....It is a multiplicity.=CA=CA
This concept has served me well in my publishing career. It is not by chanc=
e, I=20
don't think, that this concept found its way to print in the introduction t=
o=20
Mille Plateaux: vol. 2 de Capitalism et Schizophr=8Enie, published by =83di=
tions de=20
Minuit in 1980. Many of Deleuze's ideas from that seminar (and a subsequent=
one=20
in the spring of 1976 that I also attended) found their way into that book=
=20
(co-authored with F=8Elix Guattari). It is also not by chance that Minnesot=
a Press
published the book for the Anglophone world (in a splendid translation by B=
rian=20
Massumi) in 1987, before my tenure at the Press. =CA=CA
Again: I'm not really surprised by his suicide, but I did not know why he c=
hose=20
defrenestration as the best way to go. But then, for two days, I searched h=
is=20
numerous texts (21 by himself and 7 co-authored mostly with Guattari) for c=
lues.
I found two:=CA=CA
In 1969, in Logique du sens, he wrote that the philosopher's image, more=
=20
fabulous than scientific, seems to have been fixed by Platonism: the philos=
opher
is that ascendant being who emerges from the cave, rising and purifying him=
self=20
with the pure ideas he loves, very platonically.=CA=CA
Later on in the text, he comments on the Presocratic philosopher, Empedocle=
s,=20
who committed suicide by jumping into the volcano Etna:=CA=CA
The Presocratic philosopher does not emerge from the cave: On the contrary,=
he=20
figures that he's not engaged enough, not engulfed enough...Empedocles's sa=
ndals
must be distinguished from the wings of the Platonic soul: His sandals sign=
ify=20
that he is of the earth, under the earth, and autonomous. Presocratic philo=
sophy
subverts Platonic conversion.=CA=CA
In 1993, in his Afterword to Samuel Beckett's Quad, Deleuze wrote:=CA=CATh=
e=20
exhausted person is "more" than the weary person. The weary person only exh=
austs
reality, whereas the exhausted person exhausts the possible. Does he exhaus=
t the
possible because he is himself exhausted, or is he exhausted because he exh=
austs
the possible? He exhausts himself because he exhausts the possible, and=20
inversely....The most horrible position to be in is to wait for death, sitt=
ing=20
without being able to stand or sleep, waiting for the final curtain that wo=
uld=20
put one to sleep forever.=CA=CA
In 1990, I became Deleuze's editor at Minnesota Press, after Lindsay Waters=
=20
(currently executive editor at Harvard University Press) and Terry Cochran=
=20
(currently on the faculty in comparative literature at University of Montr=
=8Eal).=20
I think arbitrary (rather than motivated) coincidences are quite rare in=20
academia and publishing: =CA=CA
In 1973, before I met Deleuze in person, Tom Conley (surely an early mentor=
and=20
long-term friend of mine of some twenty-two years; after a twenty-four-year=
=20
tenure in French and Italian at the University of Minnesota, currently prof=
essor
of romance languages at Harvard University; and the translator of Deleuze's=
Le=20
Pli: Leibniz et le baroque for Minnesota Press) got me to read L'Anti-Oedi=
pe, =20
and it became my bible.=CA=CA
In 1977, I was Lindsay's teaching assistant in the humanities program (wher=
e he=20
was visiting professor for one year) at the University of Minnesota before =
he=20
joined the Press in 1978. Terry Cochran succeeded him when he went to Harva=
rd=20
Press in 1983. Terry was in the same comparative literature program with me=
in=20
1978, and we both had Wlad Godzich (who first brought Deleuze to Minnesota=
=20
under the aegis of his prestigious Theory and History of Literature--THL--=
=20
series) on our dissertation committees.=CA=CA
In 1979, after my four-year teaching assistantship ran out at the Universit=
y of=20
Minnesota, I was Wlad's research assistant (via the Federal Work-Study prog=
ram)=20
when he was chair of comparative literature. At that point, he was negotia=
ting=20
with Lindsay about starting the THL series at Minnesota Press.=CA=CA
In 1980, I drifted out of the world of American and European academia into =
the=20
(closed and incestuous) world of New York commercial publishing.=CA=CA
In 1981, I read Mille Plateaux when I thought I was powering up a career i=
n New
York commercial publishing, and the book displaced L'Anti-Oedipe as my=20
Bible.=CA=CA
In 1987, I lost the only biological father one can ever have.=CA=CA
In 1989, I emerged out of the (closed and incestuous) New York trade publis=
hing=20
world and drifted back to Minnesota to become Terry's assistant at the=20
University of Minnesota Press.=CA=CA
In 1990, I succeeded Terry when he left Minnesota Press. =CA=CA
In 1992, Deleuze lost F=8Elix Guattari, his closest friend and writing part=
ner.=CA=CA
In 1993, I wrote Deleuze after I secured the English-language rights to his=
last
book, Critique et clinique, and told him that I would be in Paris once aga=
in=20
after Frankfurt Book Fair, and could I again drop in for a visit. He respon=
ded=20
promptly (again, always in longhand) that he was happy that Minnesota Press=
was=20
translating the book, but alas, he couldn't see me this time: His doctors h=
ad=20
told him not to receive any visitors because of "the state of his health." =
=CA=CA
In 1994, I got my last letter from him. I had written to ask whether he wou=
ld=20
like to write the foreword (no matter how short) to the American edition of=
=20
Critique et clinique. (He analyzed the work of several American writers in =
the=20
book.) He said in his letter that even though he would very much have liked=
to=20
write such a foreword, his health, as he put it "was tormenting him at the=
=20
moment" and that "it was quite painful for him to move around, even to=20
undress."=CA=CA
Ever since his suicide, colleagues and friends have asked me whether Deleuz=
e was
depressed. I told them I didn't know, but that his suicide wasn't that=20
surprising given what he had been going through, that I was simply surprise=
d at=20
the manner he did it. And then I browsed his texts looking for clues. (I ha=
ve=20
since shared my discoveries with a few friends and colleagues.) One thing f=
or=20
sure: He was not depressed for most of his life, which for him, was his wo=
rk.=20
After all, the body of his work constitutes at once and among other things:=
the=20
critique of negativity; the hatred of interiority; the celebration of forc=
es;=20
the affirmation of life; and the cultivation of joy. Didn't he (with Guatta=
ri) =20
in L'Anti-Oedipe tell the analysand looking for a cure to "get up from the=
=20
couch and go out for a walk in the sun"? At the time of this writing, no de=
tails
about the defenestration have been forthcoming from the French print media=
,=20
which are not of the tabloid American and British kind. =CA=CA
Gilles Deleuze: I say "In Memoriam" on behalf of my intimate Press friends =
and=20
colleagues, my domestic US and international theoretical family members (qu=
ite a
few of whom are personal friends), and former students of Deleuze everywher=
e,=20
including Australia and Japan. He lives on in all of us who have read--and=
=20
learned from--him. We are all, in a sense, his orphans: the very metaphor h=
e=20
used for the unconscious. Our deepest sympathies for Fanny, his widow; Juli=
en,=20
his son; and =83milie, his daughter. =CA=CAIt is also not by chance that am=
ong his=20
close friends were Jean-Fran=8Dois Lyotard, R=8Eda Bensma=95a, Marcel H=8En=
aff, H=8El=8Fne=20
Cixous (who founded Vincennes after May '68 and hired him there in 1969), a=
nd=20
Toni Negri, all of whom are Minnesota Press authors and also personal frien=
ds of
mine.=CA=CA
I conclude with an anecdote that another student of Deleuze's and also a=20
Minnesota Press author, Roger Celestin, shared with me. In 1976, the day a=
fter=20
the Jonestown (Guyana) massive cult suicide-massacre, there was a transit s=
trike
in Paris. That day at the seminar in Vincennes, the usually packed room had=
only
about twenty-five students. (I was not in class that day: The strike had le=
ft me
stranded way south at the Cit=8E Universitaire on boulevard Jourdan in the =
14th=20
arrondisement.) Deleuze looked around the room at the students before begin=
ning=20
his lecture and said, while picking his famous long fingernails: "Perhaps w=
e=20
should start our own cult?"=CA=CA
Gilles Deleuze: In Memoriam: 1925-1995. In a sense, this century is alread=
y =20
Deleuzian. For example, he had worked out theoretically the distinction bet=
ween=20
actual and virtual reality at least two decades before cyberists and=20
techno-evangelists started talking about the distinction betweeen real life=
(RL)
and virtual reality (VR). What Jacques Derrida said about Maurice Blanchot =
can=20
also be applied to Deleuze: "[He] waits for us still to come, to be read an=
d=20
reread... I would say that never as much as today have I pictured him so fa=
r=20
ahead of us."=CA=CA
I know in my guts that he would want all of us, his sons and daughters, to=
=20
celebrate and affirm life (according to an adage from my Yoruba heritage "E=
at=20
life before it eats you"), in spite of everything negative going on current=
ly,=20
at this fin-de-millennium.=CA=09=CA
Biodun Iginla is Senior Editor at the University of Minnesota Press.=CA=CA=
=CA
Biodun Iginla
Senior Editor, Acquisitions
University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South #290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
612-627-1974 (office-voice)
612-627-1980 (office-fax)
612-721-9666 (home-fax)
Internet: iginl001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
JJC
________________________________________________________________________
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen =09=09 (202)994-5338 fax (202)994-7915
Associate Director, Program in Human Sciences, George Washington U
=09=09 http://www.gwu.edu/~humsci
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 95 13:31:03 -0600
From: Biodun o. Iginla <iginl001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: jjcohen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: imaginary geographies
[...]
Gilles Deleuze: In Memoriam (1925-1995): =CAA Personal Note=CA=CA=CA
Biodun Iginla=CAUniversity of Minnesota Press=CA=CA=CA
Copyright @ Biodun Iginla (1995)=CA=CA
(Prepared simultaneously for Social Text, boundary 2, The Minnesota Daily=
, =20
and Lingua Franca .)=CA=CA
Michel Foucault once said: "This century will perhaps be Deleuzian one day.=
"=CA=CA
On Saturday, November 4, 1995, I lost the only intellectual father I ever h=
ad:=20
Gilles Deleuze committed suicide by jumping out the window of his apartment=
on=20
avenue Niel in the 17th arrondisement of Paris. He was 70 years old. A grad=
uate=20
school friend of mine (he had also studied with Deleuze) who happened to be=
in=20
Paris (he's a French citizen but resides in Missoula, Montana) called me in=
=20
Minneapolis to tell me about the event a few hours after the Paris media pi=
cked=20
it up. I was not all that surprised about his suicide. I knew he had been=
=20
suffering from severe respiratory problems ever since one of his lungs coll=
apsed
several years back. And I also knew that for about one and half years befor=
e his
suicide he had been tied to a respiratory machine and told not to receive a=
ny=20
visitors and to cut back on his writing. And I also knew he recently had a=
=20
tracheotomy. But I was surprised about the manner in which he committed sui=
cide:
defenestration. =CA=CA
Uncannily, on Saturday afternoon, before I got the call from Paris, while=
=20
discussing Yitzak Rabin's assassination (and other dismaying world events t=
his=20
fin-de-millennium) with Hilary Radner, perhaps my closest friend (and Deleu=
zian=20
sister) in the US at this point, I told her that if only I could call Deleu=
ze=20
right then in Paris to ask him his opinion of the current epistemic rupture=
that
we're experiencing on all registers and levels, I would, but that alas, he'=
s=20
more or less sequestered, by his doctors, from contact with the outside wor=
ld.=CA=CA
One crisp but pleasant fall evening in October 1990, I visited Deleuze at t=
hat=20
apartment. He had just moved in. Two months before, in August, when he was =
still
living on rue de Bizerte (also in the 17th), in response to a desperate ple=
a=20
from me to intervene, on my behalf, with J=8Er=99me Lindon, his formidable =
publisher
at =83ditions de Minuit, on the matter of securing, for the University of=
=20
Minnesota Press, the English-language rights to his Pourparlers (a collect=
ion=20
of his interviews), he had written me a letter (always in longhand and alwa=
ys=20
promptly and generously) by way of apology, to explain to me why the=20
English-language rights to Pourparlers was being picked up by Columbia=20
University Press instead of by Minnesota Press. I had thought I had the=20
inalienable filial right to secure those rights, because after all, Minneso=
ta=20
Press had published eight of his books for the Anglophone world, and I was =
(and=20
still am) his student (why not say it, his "son," clearly "oedipal," agains=
t the
grain, as it were, of L'Anti-Oedipe ) and currently, his editor. He explain=
ed in
that letter that the idea for Pourparlers had come from Columbia Press, so=
they
had the dibs for the English-language rights on it. I had told him in my pl=
ea=20
that I would be in Paris that October after the Frankfurt Book Fair, and th=
at I=20
would very much like to visit him. In his letter, he said he also would ver=
y=20
much like to see me after an intervening fourteen years. He was alone when =
I=20
arrived. He met me by the elevator and led me into the spacious (for Paris)=
and=20
tastefully decorated apartment. We sat around for two hours in the living =
room=20
and drank red wine and chatted about the old days (he had retired from teac=
hing=20
in 1987) and about contemporary events (specifically, about what he called =
"the=20
terrorism of the Western State machine against the people of the third-worl=
d,"=20
which, as he knew well, had a strong resonance for me, an American citizen =
of=20
third-world heritage). He reminisced about some of his old students, the on=
es he
had lost contact with, about whatever might have become of them. He said=
=20
unfortunately, he didn't--that he couldn't possibly -- remain in contact wi=
th=20
all of his students. "There were so many of you," he said. When I saw that=
he=20
was getting tired, I decided to leave. I said goodbye. He walked me to the=
=20
elevator. He shook my hand vigorously. I took the elevator downstairs, and=
=20
disappeared into the crisp but pleasant Paris night. Of course, I had no id=
ea=20
that I would be seeing him for the last time.=CA=CA
I first met Gilles Deleuze in the spring of 1975 at Universit=8E de Paris (=
VIII)=20
(then at) Vincennes. I was attending his seminar on the philosophy of the=
=20
rhizome. I was then a graduate student in comparative literature at the=20
University of Minnesota. As far as I can recall with certainty, the followi=
ng is
one of the first coherent concepts that I grasped in the early days of that=
=20
seminar:=CA=CA
A book has neither object nor subject; it is made up of variously formed=20
matters, and very different dates and speeds. To attribute the book to a su=
bject
is to overlook this working of matters, and the exteriority of their relati=
ons.=20
It is to fabricate a God to explain geological movements. In a book, as in =
all=20
things, there are lines of articulation or segmentarity, strata and territo=
ries;
but also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialization and=20
destratification. Comparative rates of flow on these lines produce phenomen=
a of=20
relative slowness and viscosity, or, on the contrary, of acceleration and=
=20
rupture. All this, lines and measurable speeds, constitutes an assemblage. =
A=20
book is an assemblage of this kind....It is a multiplicity.=CA=CA
This concept has served me well in my publishing career. It is not by chanc=
e, I=20
don't think, that this concept found its way to print in the introduction t=
o=20
Mille Plateaux: vol. 2 de Capitalism et Schizophr=8Enie, published by =83di=
tions de=20
Minuit in 1980. Many of Deleuze's ideas from that seminar (and a subsequent=
one=20
in the spring of 1976 that I also attended) found their way into that book=
=20
(co-authored with F=8Elix Guattari). It is also not by chance that Minnesot=
a Press
published the book for the Anglophone world (in a splendid translation by B=
rian=20
Massumi) in 1987, before my tenure at the Press. =CA=CA
Again: I'm not really surprised by his suicide, but I did not know why he c=
hose=20
defrenestration as the best way to go. But then, for two days, I searched h=
is=20
numerous texts (21 by himself and 7 co-authored mostly with Guattari) for c=
lues.
I found two:=CA=CA
In 1969, in Logique du sens, he wrote that the philosopher's image, more=
=20
fabulous than scientific, seems to have been fixed by Platonism: the philos=
opher
is that ascendant being who emerges from the cave, rising and purifying him=
self=20
with the pure ideas he loves, very platonically.=CA=CA
Later on in the text, he comments on the Presocratic philosopher, Empedocle=
s,=20
who committed suicide by jumping into the volcano Etna:=CA=CA
The Presocratic philosopher does not emerge from the cave: On the contrary,=
he=20
figures that he's not engaged enough, not engulfed enough...Empedocles's sa=
ndals
must be distinguished from the wings of the Platonic soul: His sandals sign=
ify=20
that he is of the earth, under the earth, and autonomous. Presocratic philo=
sophy
subverts Platonic conversion.=CA=CA
In 1993, in his Afterword to Samuel Beckett's Quad, Deleuze wrote:=CA=CATh=
e=20
exhausted person is "more" than the weary person. The weary person only exh=
austs
reality, whereas the exhausted person exhausts the possible. Does he exhaus=
t the
possible because he is himself exhausted, or is he exhausted because he exh=
austs
the possible? He exhausts himself because he exhausts the possible, and=20
inversely....The most horrible position to be in is to wait for death, sitt=
ing=20
without being able to stand or sleep, waiting for the final curtain that wo=
uld=20
put one to sleep forever.=CA=CA
In 1990, I became Deleuze's editor at Minnesota Press, after Lindsay Waters=
=20
(currently executive editor at Harvard University Press) and Terry Cochran=
=20
(currently on the faculty in comparative literature at University of Montr=
=8Eal).=20
I think arbitrary (rather than motivated) coincidences are quite rare in=20
academia and publishing: =CA=CA
In 1973, before I met Deleuze in person, Tom Conley (surely an early mentor=
and=20
long-term friend of mine of some twenty-two years; after a twenty-four-year=
=20
tenure in French and Italian at the University of Minnesota, currently prof=
essor
of romance languages at Harvard University; and the translator of Deleuze's=
Le=20
Pli: Leibniz et le baroque for Minnesota Press) got me to read L'Anti-Oedi=
pe, =20
and it became my bible.=CA=CA
In 1977, I was Lindsay's teaching assistant in the humanities program (wher=
e he=20
was visiting professor for one year) at the University of Minnesota before =
he=20
joined the Press in 1978. Terry Cochran succeeded him when he went to Harva=
rd=20
Press in 1983. Terry was in the same comparative literature program with me=
in=20
1978, and we both had Wlad Godzich (who first brought Deleuze to Minnesota=
=20
under the aegis of his prestigious Theory and History of Literature--THL--=
=20
series) on our dissertation committees.=CA=CA
In 1979, after my four-year teaching assistantship ran out at the Universit=
y of=20
Minnesota, I was Wlad's research assistant (via the Federal Work-Study prog=
ram)=20
when he was chair of comparative literature. At that point, he was negotia=
ting=20
with Lindsay about starting the THL series at Minnesota Press.=CA=CA
In 1980, I drifted out of the world of American and European academia into =
the=20
(closed and incestuous) world of New York commercial publishing.=CA=CA
In 1981, I read Mille Plateaux when I thought I was powering up a career i=
n New
York commercial publishing, and the book displaced L'Anti-Oedipe as my=20
Bible.=CA=CA
In 1987, I lost the only biological father one can ever have.=CA=CA
In 1989, I emerged out of the (closed and incestuous) New York trade publis=
hing=20
world and drifted back to Minnesota to become Terry's assistant at the=20
University of Minnesota Press.=CA=CA
In 1990, I succeeded Terry when he left Minnesota Press. =CA=CA
In 1992, Deleuze lost F=8Elix Guattari, his closest friend and writing part=
ner.=CA=CA
In 1993, I wrote Deleuze after I secured the English-language rights to his=
last
book, Critique et clinique, and told him that I would be in Paris once aga=
in=20
after Frankfurt Book Fair, and could I again drop in for a visit. He respon=
ded=20
promptly (again, always in longhand) that he was happy that Minnesota Press=
was=20
translating the book, but alas, he couldn't see me this time: His doctors h=
ad=20
told him not to receive any visitors because of "the state of his health." =
=CA=CA
In 1994, I got my last letter from him. I had written to ask whether he wou=
ld=20
like to write the foreword (no matter how short) to the American edition of=
=20
Critique et clinique. (He analyzed the work of several American writers in =
the=20
book.) He said in his letter that even though he would very much have liked=
to=20
write such a foreword, his health, as he put it "was tormenting him at the=
=20
moment" and that "it was quite painful for him to move around, even to=20
undress."=CA=CA
Ever since his suicide, colleagues and friends have asked me whether Deleuz=
e was
depressed. I told them I didn't know, but that his suicide wasn't that=20
surprising given what he had been going through, that I was simply surprise=
d at=20
the manner he did it. And then I browsed his texts looking for clues. (I ha=
ve=20
since shared my discoveries with a few friends and colleagues.) One thing f=
or=20
sure: He was not depressed for most of his life, which for him, was his wo=
rk.=20
After all, the body of his work constitutes at once and among other things:=
the=20
critique of negativity; the hatred of interiority; the celebration of forc=
es;=20
the affirmation of life; and the cultivation of joy. Didn't he (with Guatta=
ri) =20
in L'Anti-Oedipe tell the analysand looking for a cure to "get up from the=
=20
couch and go out for a walk in the sun"? At the time of this writing, no de=
tails
about the defenestration have been forthcoming from the French print media=
,=20
which are not of the tabloid American and British kind. =CA=CA
Gilles Deleuze: I say "In Memoriam" on behalf of my intimate Press friends =
and=20
colleagues, my domestic US and international theoretical family members (qu=
ite a
few of whom are personal friends), and former students of Deleuze everywher=
e,=20
including Australia and Japan. He lives on in all of us who have read--and=
=20
learned from--him. We are all, in a sense, his orphans: the very metaphor h=
e=20
used for the unconscious. Our deepest sympathies for Fanny, his widow; Juli=
en,=20
his son; and =83milie, his daughter. =CA=CAIt is also not by chance that am=
ong his=20
close friends were Jean-Fran=8Dois Lyotard, R=8Eda Bensma=95a, Marcel H=8En=
aff, H=8El=8Fne=20
Cixous (who founded Vincennes after May '68 and hired him there in 1969), a=
nd=20
Toni Negri, all of whom are Minnesota Press authors and also personal frien=
ds of
mine.=CA=CA
I conclude with an anecdote that another student of Deleuze's and also a=20
Minnesota Press author, Roger Celestin, shared with me. In 1976, the day a=
fter=20
the Jonestown (Guyana) massive cult suicide-massacre, there was a transit s=
trike
in Paris. That day at the seminar in Vincennes, the usually packed room had=
only
about twenty-five students. (I was not in class that day: The strike had le=
ft me
stranded way south at the Cit=8E Universitaire on boulevard Jourdan in the =
14th=20
arrondisement.) Deleuze looked around the room at the students before begin=
ning=20
his lecture and said, while picking his famous long fingernails: "Perhaps w=
e=20
should start our own cult?"=CA=CA
Gilles Deleuze: In Memoriam: 1925-1995. In a sense, this century is alread=
y =20
Deleuzian. For example, he had worked out theoretically the distinction bet=
ween=20
actual and virtual reality at least two decades before cyberists and=20
techno-evangelists started talking about the distinction betweeen real life=
(RL)
and virtual reality (VR). What Jacques Derrida said about Maurice Blanchot =
can=20
also be applied to Deleuze: "[He] waits for us still to come, to be read an=
d=20
reread... I would say that never as much as today have I pictured him so fa=
r=20
ahead of us."=CA=CA
I know in my guts that he would want all of us, his sons and daughters, to=
=20
celebrate and affirm life (according to an adage from my Yoruba heritage "E=
at=20
life before it eats you"), in spite of everything negative going on current=
ly,=20
at this fin-de-millennium.=CA=09=CA
Biodun Iginla is Senior Editor at the University of Minnesota Press.=CA=CA=
=CA
Biodun Iginla
Senior Editor, Acquisitions
University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South #290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
612-627-1974 (office-voice)
612-627-1980 (office-fax)
612-721-9666 (home-fax)
Internet: iginl001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
