Recommendations

Books Like L'Anti-Œdipe by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari

Works that treat desire as production rather than lack

Deleuze and Guattari argue that desire is not the desire for something missing (the psychoanalytic model) but the production of something new. These works share that same affirmative conception of desire: not the absence of the object but the creation of the connection.

  1. 1

    Mille Plateaux

    by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari

    A Thousand Plateaus — the second volume; the rhizome, the body without organs, nomadology; the more philosophically developed and more systematically organized Deleuze-Guattari; read after L'Anti-Œdipe

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  2. Différence et répétition cover
    2

    Différence et répétition

    by Gilles Deleuze

    Deleuze's individual masterpiece — the metaphysics of difference without identity; the philosophical foundation that underlies the Guattari collaborations; the central Deleuze text

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  3. Surveiller et punir cover
    3

    Surveiller et punir

    by Michel Foucault

    Foucault's analysis of disciplinary power — the closest parallel to Anti-Oedipus in the post-structuralist field; both analyze how modern power produces subjects rather than repressing them

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  4. La Société du spectacle cover
    4

    La Société du spectacle

    by Guy Debord

    Debord's Situationist analysis of the spectacle — the political predecessor that Anti-Oedipus develops; the shared diagnosis of capitalism as producing alienated desire rather than satisfying real needs

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  5. De la grammatologie cover
    5

    De la grammatologie

    by Jacques Derrida

    The founding deconstructive text — Derrida and Deleuze are the two most important post-structuralist philosophers; they share the rejection of presence and representation but differ on affirmation vs. deconstruction

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  6. 6

    Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?

    by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari

    What is Philosophy? — the final Deleuze-Guattari collaboration; concepts, percepts, affects; the most accessible statement of their shared philosophical vision; read last

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  7. Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu cover
    7

    Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu

    by Antonin Artaud

    Artaud's radio play — the source of the 'body without organs' concept; the surrealist/theatre of cruelty original that Deleuze and Guattari transform into a philosophical concept

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  8. Nietzsche et la philosophie cover
    8

    Nietzsche et la philosophie

    by Gilles Deleuze

    Deleuze's Nietzsche study — the interpretation of Nietzsche through the concepts of force, will to power, and affirmation that underlies the Anti-Oedipus program; the essential Deleuze-Nietzsche connection

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