Description:
Antonia Pont shows us how to identify when practising is happening and explains, using the early philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, how it fosters transformation, and gives us access to deep memory and rest, while also cultivating stability and responsiveness in the present. Practising, in other words, gives us three kinds of time instead of one. Practising involves an interweaving of differences expressing themselves among intentional repetitions. By engaging in practising, we open times other than our habitual presents, we slip the binds of identity and we thin out our relation with behaviours that shut out the future. Whether you practise already, are curious about embarking, or are a reader of Deleuze, this book - for makers, thinkers, lovers and activists - is a rigorous account of why practising is hard to say, why it works and why it matters.
Brief description: Antonia Pont is Senior Lecturer in Writing, Literature and Culture at Deakin University, Australia. She publishes poetry, fiction and essays as well as theoretical work across writing, literature and the creative arts. Her research is concerned with time, transformation, ethical capacity, thought, movement and joy. She is the founder of Vijnana Yoga Australia (2009- ), where she continues to practise, teach and lead retreats. Her collection of poetry You Will Not Know in Advance What You'll Feel was published in 2019 with Rabbit Poets Series and shortlisted for the Mary Gilmore Award (2020). She is co-author of Practising with Deleuze (Edinburgh University Press, 2017).
Review Quotes:
A Philosophy of Practising develops a philosophical understanding of the complexities and productivities of practices - artistic, sporting, nurturing or conceptual - that we engage with and call us beyond our current limits. It is a carefully conceived project that uses Gilles Deleuze's philosophical insights regarding difference and repetition to articulate the ways in which practising enables new modes of self-creation.
-- "Elizabeth Grosz, Duke University"