Christopher Penfield, Deleuze’s Foucault. A Virtual Force Ontology, Edinburgh University Press, 2026
Christopher Penfield illuminates the philosophical encounter between Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, developing the first systematic treatment of Deleuze’s book Foucault, originally published in 1986. Using the full spectrum of Foucault’s primary texts, as well as new insights and analysis from Deleuze’s recently translated and published seminars on Foucault, Penfield identifies and elaborates the two thinkers’ shared philosophy of force as the novel conceptual framework of ‘virtual force ontology’.
For the field of Foucault studies, where Foucault still meets with misunderstanding, Penfield clarifies and motivates the demanding, highly abstract portrait of Foucault that Deleuze offers; and in demonstrating Deleuze’s philosophical reconstruction, unlocks unrealized aspects of Foucault’s thought.
For students as well as scholars of Deleuze, Penfield establishes the unique place and importance of Foucault in Deleuze’s oeuvre, illuminating the fundamental impact of Foucault on Deleuze and the ‘common cause’ (Deleuze) that shaped the course of their mutually transformative philosophical relationship.
Christopher Penfield is Charles A. Dana Associate Professor of Philosophy at Sweet Briar College. He is the co-editor of Between Foucault and Derrida (EUP, 2016) and author of numerous articles on contemporary French philosophy, social and political theory, and aesthetics, including those published in or by Deleuze and Guattari Studies, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Tate Publishing, Foucault Studies and The Cambridge Foucault Lexicon.
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