In May 1968, Gilles Deleuze was an established philosopher teaching at the innovative Vincennes University, just outside of Paris. Félix Guattari was a political militant and the director of an unusual psychiatric clinic at La Borde. Their meeting was quite unlikely, yet the two were introduced in an arranged encounter of epic consequence. From that moment on, Deleuze and Guattari engaged in a surprising, productive partnership, collaborating on several groundbreaking works, including Anti-Oedipus, What Is Philosophy? and A Thousand Plateaus.François Dosse, a prominent French intellectual known for his work on the Annales School, structuralism, and biographies of the pivotal intellectuals Paul Ricoeur, Pierre Chaunu, and Michel de Certeau, examines the prolific if improbable relationship between two men of distinct and differing sensibilities. Drawing on unpublished archives and hundreds of personal interviews, Dosse elucidates a collaboration that lasted more than two decades, underscoring the role that family and history¿particularly the turbulent time of May 1968¿play in their monumental work. He also takes the measure of Deleuze and Guattari's posthumous fortunes and the impact of their thought on intellectual, academic, and professional circles.

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Betwixt or Between
Part I. Folds: Parallel Biographies
1. Félix Guattari: The Psychopolitical Itinerary, 1930-1964
2. La Borde: Between Myth and Reality
3. Daily Life at La Borde
4. Testing Critical Research Empirically
5. Gilles Deleuze: The Hero's Brother
6. The Art of the Portrait
7. Nietzsche, Bergson, Spinoza: A Trio for a Vitalist Philosophy
8. An Ontology of Difference
9. The Founding Rupture: May 1968
Part II. Unfolding: Intersecting Lives
10. "Psychoanalysm" Under Attack
11. Anti-Oedipus
12. Machine Against Structure
13. "Minor" Literature as Seen by Deleuze and Guattari
14. A Thousand Plateaus : A Geophilosophy of Politics
15. The CERFI at Work
16. The "Molecular Revolution": Italy, Germany, France
17. Deleuze and Foucault: A Philosophical Friendship
18. An Alternative to Psychiatry?
19. Deleuze at Vincennes
20. The Year of Combat: 1977
Part III. Surplices: 1980-2007
21. Guattari Between Culture and Ecology
22. Deleuze Goes to the Movies
23. Guattari and Aesthetics: Consolation During the Winter Years
24. Deleuze Dialogues with Creation
25. An Artist Philosophy
26. Winning Over the West
27. Around the World
28. Two Deaths
29. Their Work at Work
30. Conclusion
Notes
Index