Repetition:Differential Monotony, Affects, Creation

This article explores the creative value of the notion of ‘repetition’ in Michel Foucault’s texts from the 1960s and early 1970s. Re-enacting Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy, Foucault implicitly refers to the Freudian repetition mechanisms in order to distort and reverse them. Foucault’s repetition is de-psychologized, affectively de-individualizing, and temporally erratic, using the power of a senseless repetition to create new possibilities for the future.Arianna Sforzini, ‘Repetition: Differential Monotony, Affects, Creation’, in Re-: An Errant Glossary, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Arnd Wedemeyer, Cultural Inquiry, 15 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2019), pp. 99-105