I’m working on my book with greater focus now that the semester is done (no, really i am), and I was going back over Maneul Delanda’s Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. He describes multiplicity as Deleuze’s replacement for the traditional concept of essence. In short, rather than defining humans as having particular essential traits, a multiplicity articulates humans as becoming shaped over time, as a morphogenetic process that is immanent and material. However, Delanda continues,

even if the details of a given process account for the resemblance among its products, the similiarities which make us classify them as members of the same kind, there may be similarities of process which still demand explanation. And when accounting for these common features we may be temptd to reintroduce essences through the back door. These would not be esseces of objects or kinds of objects, but essences of processes, yet essences nevertheless. (10)

So, this got me thinking specifically of process/post-process composition. Post-process has been around since at least the early nineties and really gets its start in the turn toward a socio-political, discursive approach to writing that begins in the mid-eighties. Nevertheless,  a process orientation remains dominant in composition (except where the prior current-traditional, product orientation still remains  supreme).

The common  complaint regarding post-process is that its focus on the ideological/cultural aspects of discourse doesn’t really provide much insight into how we write or how to teach writing practices. This may not be entirely fair as post-process isn’t so much a unified movement as a constellation of critiques of the process approach, but that’s really beside the point here.

My point,  such as it is, is that Deleuze’s concept of multiplicity, and Delanda’s notion of the manifold, provide a post-process means for understanding how writing is produced. It should prove an interesting element to this part of my book, which focuses on philosophical concepts of the virtual (as opposed to the notion of virtuality related to new media…yes, the two are connected–I get to that).

Let me just say I think this will give new meaning to the idea of "writing intensive" courses.

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