Deleuze-Lucretius Encounter

Ryan J. Johnson is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Elon University, in North Carolina. Ryan’s early books include The Deleuze-Lucretius Encounter (Edinburgh UP 2016) and Deleuze, A Stoic (Edinburgh UP 2020), as well as the co-edited collections Contemporary Encounters with Ancient Metaphysics (Edinburgh UP 2018) and Nietzsche and Epicurus (Bloomsbury 2020). His recent work includes the co-written Phenomenology of Black Spirit (Edinburgh UP 2023) and the monograph Three American Hegels (Rowman & Littlefield 2024). His future work is on the radical abolitionist John Brown, Spinoza, and John Coltrane.

• IntroductionDeleuze and the adventure of ideasThe atomic ideaDifferentiation, individuation, dramatisation, and actualisationThe encounter in sense and thoughtEthics in the Garden of EpicurusConclusion: The encounterBibliography

Readers will be surprised and charmed at the parallels Ryan Johnson finds between Deleuze and Lucretius. The lines he draws from Ancient atomist ideas about relations, movements, and speeds, through to Deleuzian materialism are exciting and convincing. The book is packed with interesting ideas and twists and is exacting in its scholarship. On top of that, it is beautifully written.