Re: MP vs A-O / Etc.

I just wanted to take a moment, as the semester winds down because I know
we will probably be losing some people, to say thank you to all of you
for your participation on this list, and to say how truely impressed I have
been with the quality and diversity of the discussion, and the overall
openness, civility and generosity of the participants, despite our one
(almost) flamewar. The later was really a minor incident compared to
what I've seen on lists where you would think flamewars would be far less
of a hazzard than here.

I also apologize for my relative lack of participation. Illness really
sucks. (See Artaud's thoughts about the body which run through my mind
rather frequently. . . .) I am doing a bit better, and have been thinking
a lot about the recent posts, and hope to be contributing more at this
point.

I would like people's input as to where we are with the Rhizome reading -
that is, are we ready to "wrap it up" (officially speaking, in terms of
the _Mille Plateaux_ reading group - people will always be free to post
on it or any other topic, and of course there is no question of enacting
or even pretending to advance any kind of "closure" here) fairly soon
and move on to another section of the text? If so, what kinds of
wrap-up discussion do we need to have? We have close to 400 people on
the list, last time I checked, and I'd still like to hear more from
D/G "newbies" - what did you like/dislike about your reading of "Rhizome"
what did you find useful/not useful; what questions do you have at this
point?

And where would people like to turn next? Straight through or skipping
around among the plateaus? Either way is good for me. I'll be glad
to prepare some comments/thoughts/points of provocation on whatever
section we decide to turn to, which I see as my largest role as so-
called "coordinator" of this group reading - - which has turned out to
be even more uncoordinated than I had planned, but really didn't suffer
at all for that as far as I can see.

Many thanks again to people like Charlie and Marie for sharing works in
progress and translations!!!!! Really great stuff.

Finally, Erik Davis' first post showed him a bit concerned that I was
going to play teacher, a concern I suspect that he is well over, but
to play teacher for a moment, I wanted to say that some lines from
his latest post sum up well what I was trying to say about _Mille
Plateaux_ in the introductory posts that I wrote. . . .

Erik Davis writes:
>
> To me D and D&G are radical the way that the discovery/invention of the
> calculus or non-linear dissipative structures are radical. The way "out"
> is not the way we came in, it lies in a fundamental reorganization of what
> it means to think and unfold thought in the collective body of the world.
> 1000P is some tangled slice of that chaotic attractor, one which lies on
> the other side of distinctions like radical/cop-out, that old progressive
> talk, that itch to erect enemies we already know how to critique so that
> the nature of our critique never changes, like a broken record.
>
I'll be posting on this whole _Anti-Oedipus_ vs. _Mille Plateau_ and
"institutionalization" of D&G thread in a few days - still trying to
draw together my thoughts from a variety of different directions. In
the meantime, what Eric wrote sums up a lot of it, at least for me.

Take care all. To those of you in the academy, hold on, don't flip
out, its almost over :) To the rest of you, hold on, don't flip out,
it is still becoming :)

Michael

--
---------------------------Michael J. Current----------------------------
mcurrent@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -or- @ins.infonet.net -or- @nyx.cs.du.edu
Specializing in Philosophy, Queer Studies, Depression, & Unemployment :)
737 - 18th Street, #9 * Des Moines, IA * 50314-1031 *** (515) 283-2142
"AN IMAGE OF THOUGHT CALLED PHILOSOPHY HAS BEEN FORMED HISTORICALLY
AND IT EFFECTIVELY STOPS PEOPLE FROM THINKING." - GILLES DELEUZE
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