Incorporeal Matters (Between Deleuze and New Materialism)

Janae Sholtz argues that returning to Deleuze’s elaborations of thought, sense and conceptuality is necessary for meeting ethical and political challenges and for conceiving our relation to relational ontology.

Sholtz interrogates how key concepts – such as sense, the virtual and abstract machines – have been sidelined in favour of more tangible materialist frameworks and argues for a vital idealism to complement vital materialism. Bridging philosophical, feminist and political terrains, she proposes an ‘imageless image of thought’ as a new way to conceptualise thinking – dynamic, open-ended and aligned with affect, matter and the cosmos. In turn, she shows why Deleuze’s emphasis on the incorporeal is crucial for thinking about socio-political issues and human responsibility.