The Invention of a People ─ Heidegger and Deleuze on Art and the Political

A multi-layered reading of the intersections between two of the most influential figures in contemporary philosophy

The Invention of a People explores the residual relation between Heidegger's thought and Deleuze's novelty, focusing on the parallels between their emphasis on the connection of earth, art and a people-to-come.

Contextualising the problematic of a people-to-come within a larger political and philosophical context of post-war thinkers of community such as Bataille, Blanchot and Nancy, Sholtz offers a creative approach to the work of these two thinkers. Deleuze's project is therefore cast as both an extension and radicalisation of the Heideggerian themes of immanence, ontological difference and the transformative potential of art.

Presenting interstitial readings of Paul Klee, Kostos Axelos, Arthur Rimbaud, the 1960's art collective Fluxus and artist Brian Fridge, she invents creative encounters which act as provocations from the outside, opening new lines of flight and previously unthought terrain. Ultimately, she develops a diagrammatic image of a people-to-come that is constantly in flux and can answer the demands of the untimely future.

Janae Sholtz is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Alvernia University. She has published articles withinPhiloSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism. She has contributed chapters toThe Continuum Companion to Heidegger edited by Francois Raffoul and Eric S. Nelson (Bloomsbury, forthcoming) andBetween Deleuze and Foucault edited by Daniel W. Smith, Thomas Nail and Nicolae Morar (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming).