Deleuze and Slowness: Against Accelerationist Thinking

This book diverges from the conventional interpretation of Deleuze as a philosopher of speed or even accelerationism, delving instead into the minor but critical themes of slowness – from idiocy to catatonia – in his works. Advocating for a pragmatic reading of Deleuze source material, Deleuze and Slowness utilises his thought to address urgent challenges in contemporary political and social philosophy, particularly the issue of acceleration in its subjective, socio-political, and ecological dimensions. The first part discusses the significance of “slowness” and introduces the problem of social acceleration, exploring the relationship of Deleuze's thought with theorists rarely invoked in Deleuzian scholarship, such as Martha Nussbaum and Hartmut Rosa. Using a wide range of examples and sources including Heinrich von Kleist and Madame de La Fayette, the second part of the book delves deeper into the three manifestations of slowness in Deleuze's philosophy: the conceptual personae of the idiot, the animal, and the catatonic. These personae and the concepts they help develop are explored as potential strategies of active resistance against the facets of social acceleration. Radically opposing enamourment with speed and efficiency that characterises the present day, Krzysztof Skonieczny shows how a Deleuzian theory of slowness can inspire productive resistance in the three areas that have been most vulnerable to omnipresent acceleration: our subjectivity, profoundly changed by the accelerating pace of life; our socio-political milieu, ruled by corporate efficiency; and our relationship to the environment, quickly heading towards catastrophe.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. Deleuze as a Philosopher of Slowness Part I: Deleuze and Slowness 1. Why slowness matters on the subjective, sociopolitical and environmental level 2. Three Types of Slowness in Deleuze: Biographical, Methodological, Political 3. Politics of the Event, Politics of Literature Part II: Idiots, Cows and Catatonics 4. Idiots: Idiocy as a Slow Political Strategy from Kafka to the Internet 5. Cows: Becoming-a-slow-animal 6. Catatonics: Politics of Slow Resistance

About the Author :
Krzysztof Skonieczny is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales,” University of Warsaw, Poland, where he is a member of the Techno-Humanities Lab. He is the author of Immanence and the Animal: A Conceptual Inquiry (2020) and co-editor (with Szymon Wróbel) of Living and Thinking in the Post-Digital World: Theories, Experiences, Explorations (2021) and Regimes of Capital in the Post-Digital Age (2023).

Review :
In an age of perpetual acceleration, this book asks what it means to slow down intensively, not as nostalgia or inertia, but as a strategy of creation and survival. Moving from the myth of Deleuze's “accelerationism” to a new reading of his ethics and politics, it explores how slowness can recompose bodies, thoughts, and collectives. With chapters on Kafka's “idiots,” the cow as a figure of planetary resistance, and the catatonic as the last refuge of refusal, Deleuze and Slowness offers a strikingly contemporary Deleuze, one who resists the present by slowing it down. In a digital era defined by acceleration, blistering pace, and relentless speed, a book on slowness is profoundly untimely. By addressing exhaustion and overexertion, this work offers a symptomatology, delivering a shock to thought and making a vital contribution to Deleuze scholarship. It provides a necessary rupture in the unthinkingness of our contemporary moment