The Fold Leibniz and the Baroque

"The scope of Deleuze's understanding makes this book pertinent to artists, writers, architects, or anyone generally interested in ideas. The Fold attests to Deleuze's status as one of the most relevant and insightful philosophers." ?San Francisco Bay Guardian

"A significant and needed contribution that proposes a radically new conception of the notion of Baroque and, at the same time, is a new interpretation of Leibniz's work." ?Réda Bensmaïa

In The Fold, Gilles Deleuze argues that Leibniz's writings constitute the grounding elements of a Baroque philosophy and of theories for analyzing contemporary arts and science. A model for expression in contemporary aesthetics, the concept of the monad is viewed in terms of folds of space, movement, and time. Similarly, the world is interpreted as a body of infinite folds and surfaces that twist and weave through compressed time and space. According to Deleuze, Leibniz also anticipates contemporary views of event and history as multifaceted combinations of signs in motion and of the "modern" subject as nomadic, always in the process of becoming.

Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was professor of philosophy at the University of Paris, Vincennes-St. Denis. With Félix Guattari, he coauthored Anti-Oedipus, A Thousand Plateaus, and Kafka. He was also the author of Cinema 1, Cinema 2, Essays Critical and Clinical, Foucault, Francis Bacon, Kant's Critical Philosophy, and Proust and Signs.

Tom Conley is professor of French at Harvard University. He is the author of The Self-Made Map and has translated several books, including works by Réda Bensmaïa and Michel de Certeau.