Episode #08: The War Machine

09/06/21 • 84 min

This week we are joined by a very special guest, Lucy from the Wyrd Signal podcast. Together, we read the nomadology chapter on Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus.

We spoke about the form and content of State apparatuses, war machines, nomads, blobs, and how this all relates to conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine and the clandestine activities of the deep state.

Listen below or, alternatively, find us on Spotify, iTunes, SoundCloud, Podbean and YouTube.

If you like to read along with us, we read “1227: Treatise on Nomadology — The War Machine” from Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus — a chapter so long that has also been published in its own right as Nomadology: The War Machine.

Below you can find a list of additional links to further material that is either discussed over the course of this episode or which helped inform our readings:

“The Crimes of SEAL Team 6” by Matthew Cole
“The Art of War” by Eyal Weizman
“19” by Paul Hardcastle
“Bureaucracy to Battlefield” by Donald Rumsfeld
“More, Less, or Different? Where U.S. Foreign Policy Should — And Shouldn’t — Go From Here” by Jake Sullivan
Red Pill by Hari Kunzru

The Buddies Without Organs podcast theme tune was written and recorded by George Rennie.

This week we are joined by a very special guest, Lucy from the Wyrd Signal podcast. Together, we read the nomadology chapter on Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus.

Listen below or, alternatively, find us on Spotify, iTunes, SoundCloud, Podbean and YouTube.

Below you can find a list of additional links to further material that is either discussed over the course of this episode or which helped inform our readings:

“The Crimes of SEAL Team 6” by Matthew Cole
“The Art of War” by Eyal Weizman
“19” by Paul Hardcastle
“Bureaucracy to Battlefield” by Donald Rumsfeld
“More, Less, or Different? Where U.S. Foreign Policy Should — And Shouldn’t — Go From Here” by Jake Sullivan
Red Pill by Hari Kunzru

The Buddies Without Organs podcast theme tune was written and recorded by George Rennie.

Previous Episode

Episode #07: The Fold (Part 1)

It has been a long time coming... I don’t think we fully appreciated what we getting ourselves into here. Unfolding, with intervals, over the coming months, the buddies begin their three-part reading of Gilles Deleuze’s 1988 book The Fold.

Beginning with a quick look at the life and times of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, each of the buddies tackle a chapter in the first third of this uncharacteristically dry but quintessentially difficult book on the Baroque.

Each of us felt bruised after this. We hope our listeners do not. Even if you do, bear with us as we unpack one of Deleuze’s most densely rewarding works.

(Also, please excuse the lack of a doodle for this episode. The use of Velázquez’ Las Meninas comes courtesy of Wikipedia’s treasure trove of hi-res public domain artworks because Matt has only gone and broken his drawing hand.)

Listen below or, alternatively, find us on Spotify, iTunes SoundCloud, Podbean and YouTube.

Below you can find a list of additional links and references to secondary scholarship and visual material that is discussed over the course of this episode:

Leibniz’s Philosophical Essays
Matthew Stewart’s The Courtier and the Heretic
Fernando de Casas Novoa’s Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella
Diego Velázquez’ Las Meninas
Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa

The Buddies Without Organs podcast theme tune was written and recorded by George Rennie.

Next Episode

Episode #09: The Event

Hello Buddies! It has been a while... Sorry about that. We were well and truly defeated by The Fold. But rather than abandon our reading completely, we decided to branch out and try and make sense of one concept at the heart of the book. Lucky for us, it is a concept that remains at the heart of Deleuze’s thought until his death: “the event”.

In this episode, we talk about Alice in Wonderland, Charles Dickens, Stoicism, the life of philosophy, Deleuze’s death, and we also announced what’s next for the podcast in 2022...

For those that don’t already know, we will be partnering up with the recently relaunched Zer0 Books YouTube channel to present The K-Files, a deep-dive into the work of Mark Fisher. You can still find us here and listen to us elsewhere, but make sure to give Zer0 a sub as that channel will be getting first dibs on our YouTube videos from now on.

For now, you can listen below or, alternatively, find us on Spotify, iTunes, Podbean and YouTube.

If you like to read along with us, our discussion is based on “What is an Event?” from Deleuze’s book The Fold; various chapters of Logic of Sense, particularly the “First Series on Paradoxes of Pure Becoming” and the “Twenty-First Series of the Event”; and the essay “Immanence: A Life” from Pure Immanence.

You can find links to a few other things discussed and drawn upon below:

The Buddies Without Organs podcast theme tune was written and recorded by George Rennie.