Deleuze issue of Tamara 

Call for Papers

Tamara: Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science (ISSN: 1532-5555)

Special issue on Deleuze & Organization Theory

Guest Editor: Torkild Thanem, School of Business, Stockholm University, Sweden
Email: torkild.thanem@fek.su.se

Submission deadline: 1 July 2003

The past couple of decades have witnessed an expanding interest in the work of the 
French 20th century philosopher Gilles Deleuze, inside and outside philosophy. 
Applications and interpretations of Deleuzian philosophy have been pursued by 
scholars from disciplines across the humanities and the social sciences, including
cultural studies, film studies, literary theory, women’s studies, social theory, and 
more recently, certain areas of organization theory and management. Still, 
Deleuze is often considered an obscure thinker, more elusive than contemporaries 
such as Foucault and Derrida. Notwithstanding, his contribution to Western thought 
has been extraordinary. From a sophisticated thinking of becoming and the virtual, 
and whilst building on controversial thinkers such as Nietzsche, Bergson and 
Spinoza, Deleuze has been a significant interlocutor in the critical rewriting of the 
history of metaphysics in ways that open up rather than close down the world and 
how Western philosophy thinks about the world. In his joint work with the 
psychologist Félix Guattari, and on a more concrete level akin to the agenda of 
organization theory, Deleuze has even offered thought-provoking commentaries on 
the nature and workings of capitalism, bureaucracy and the State, juxtaposing 
these phenomena with schizophrenia. Moreover, via a fundamental questioning 
of psychoanalysis and through powerful notions such as the body without organs, 
nomadology and becoming-other, Deleuze (often, but not always with Guattari) 
has developed radical propositions for a life to be lived differently from the 
established habits, norms and traditions of Western modern society. This 
biophilosophical interest has been underpinned by a more methodological 
concern, rethinking the task of philosophy as the creative invention of concepts 
and problematizing the relationship between thought and life, theory and practice. 

The question is what this may offer organization theory and the analysis of work 
organization, management and the organization of life in modernity. In other words, 
what can Deleuze do to organization theory and what can organization theory 
do with Deleuze? In order to find out, both Deleuze and organization theory must 
be subjected to critical scrutiny, and what has already been done within this area 
needs to be revisited and added to by scholarly work that shows serious 
commitment both to the philosophy of Deleuze and to the future of organization 
theory. This special issue therefore welcomes papers inhabiting the interstices 
between Deleuze and organization theory, and it particularly invites contributions 
that cut through and flesh out Deleuzian (and DeleuzoGuattarian) jargon in creative 
and rigorous ways whilst dealing with issues of organization. Possible areas of inquiry 
may include (but are not restricted to): 
· Organization and disorganization 
· Capitalism and the market economy 
· Social movements and workers’ resistance 
· Technology, knowledge and ‘virtual organization’ 
· Gender, sexuality, emotions and embodiment 
· Organizational change, culture and leadership 
· Organizational empires, organizational madness and the underbelly of organization 
· Methodological and metatheoretical issues in organization theory 
Accepted papers will be published in both the printed version of the journal and in the 
online version, i.e. in Tamara vol. 3 no. 2, 2004.

Deadline for submissions: 1 July 2003

Please submit full papers (20-25 pages, approx. 5-6,000 words) via email as Word 
attachments directly to the guest editor torkild.thanem@fek.su.se.

Guidelines for authors can be found on the Tamara website: 
http://www.zianet.com/boje/tamara/pages/policies_room.html

Potential contributors and reviewers please contact the guest editor for further inquires.