Introduction

Issue 13.3 is the third issue of Theory & Event published since the journal successfully transferred offices to Trent University (Canada) in January of 2010, after Michael Shapiro of the University of Hawai’i stepped down as Co-Editor. In this regard, the Co-Editors Jodi Dean and Davide Panagia would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the continued assistance of Project Muse and the editors of JHU Press, and to thank Trent University for its gracious support of journal activities. We would like to express our gratitude for the untiring efforts of our Managing Editor, Jo Anne Colson.

Issue 13.3 begins with an article by Seán Molloy that analyzes the nature and substance of Thomas Pynchon’s political thought. This comprehensive analysis of Pynchon’s writings explores not simply Pynchon’s style of political criticism, but the complex layers of his political cosmology as well.

Dylan Weller offers us the second essay of this issue. In his piece Weller intervenes in recent discussions of James’s radical pluralism by addressing James’s commitment to a science of religion which collects a variety of religious experiences but excises that which is uncommon between them. In doing so, Weller complicates the image of James as “an unwavering proponent of pluralistic contestation.”

Brad Evans and Laura Guillaume guest edit our third symposium of Volume 13, entitled “Deleuze and War.” The ambition for this symposium is to explore Deleuze’s concerns with the problem of war, their contributions to his thinking, and the contemporary issues that arise out of the relationship between Deleuze and war in the face of increasingly shifting conceptions of state power and militarization. Their introduction is openly accessible and is available here.

Pieces in this symposium include: an exchange with Brad Evans and Michael Hardt on the relationship between civil war and the problems of sovereignty; an interview by Laura Guillaume with James Der Derian that takes up issues such as the (ab)use of the militarization of critical thought; an essay by Julian Reid that engages Deleuze’s analysis of cinema and his problematic periodizations of pre and post-war films; a contribution from Brian Massumi considering the ubiquity of “soft power” and “epistemological warfare” and defending the virtual against the military logic of pre-emption; a paper from John Protevi deploying Deleuze and Guattari’s complex notion of affect in order to rethink how we understand the body in the face of affective responses to war; an essay by Brad Evans arguing that security is becoming less concerned with issues of identity and more focused on questions of circulation and emergence; a genealogy of war exploring how the forces of capture and flight operate in everyday life by Guillaume Sibertin-Blanc; and, a paper by Gregg Lambert that traces the relationship between the war machine, the state, and the people.

Our review section, edited by Kennan Ferguson, includes the following reviews of recent publications: Nicola Masciandaro of Brooklyn College reviews Giorgio Agamben’s The Signature of All Things: On Method (Zone, 2009); Simon Scott of the University of Warwick reviews Alexandre Lefebvre’s The Image of Law: Deleuze, Bergson, Spinoza (Stanford University Press, 2008); Nicholas Tampio of Fordham University reviews Nathan Widder’s Reflections on Time and Politics (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008); Beth Hinderliter of Buffalo State College reviews Erin Manning’s Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy (MIT Press, 2009); and, Dean Mathiowetz of the University of California in Santa Cruz reviews Christian Marazzi’s Capital and Language: From the New Economy to the War Economy (Semiotext(e), 2008).