Accumulation, Transmission. Deleuze and
the Movements of the Seventh Series
Zornitsa Dimitrova University of Münster
Abstract
This essay probes into the possibility of encountering the Deleuzian
sense-event in four Tom Stoppard radio plays, Moon (1964), Boot
(1964), Glad (1966) and Artist Descending A Staircase (1972). Itself an
incorporeal – an occurrence of the interface – the wonderful and strange
protagonist of Gilles Deleuze’s 1969 Logic of Sense is approached in
apophatic gestures, with a glimpse at the various vestiges it has left
upon texts. Within this exercise in indirection, ‘empty forms’ present
themselves as the texts’ circulating words. Informed by and receiving
infusions from two parallel flows of Deleuzian signifiers and signifieds,
these entities are singled out as the texts’ pointers that open up a cleavage
where the sense-event can issue forth.
Keywords: Deleuze, Stoppard, radio, sense, event, language
I. Introduction
This is an attempt to account for the oftentimes deliberate gaps,
overlappings or paradoxical attachments of Deleuzian sense and its
ground of subsistence, the dramatic utterance, in four Tom Stoppard
radio plays, M is for Moon Among Other Things (1964), The
Dissolution of Dominic Boot (1964), If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank (1966)
and Artist Descending A Staircase (1972). Itself an incorporeal – an
occurrence of the interface – the wonderful and strange protagonist of
Gilles Deleuze’s 1969 Logic of Sense (Deleuze 1990) will be approached
in apophatic gestures, with a glimpse at the various vestiges it has left
Deleuze Studies 6.3 (2012): 464–484
DOI: 10.3366/dls.2012.0074
© Edinburgh University Press
www.eupjournals.com/dls