Interest in the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze has grown exponentially over the last two decades, and, in recent years, Asian scholars have come to see rich possibilities for developing his thought within an Asian context. In this, the first collection devoted to Deleuze and Asia, several Asian and Western scholars explore Deleuzian themes and concepts in areas ranging from philosophy and religion to new media studies, cultural studies, theater, architecture, painting, film, and literature. Topics addressed include: onto-aesthetics in Deleuze and Taoism; Deleuzian univocity of being and the Original Enlightenment Thought of Mahāyāna Buddhism; Leibnizian and Bergsonian influences in Deleuze and the Japanese philosopher Nishida; Deleuze’s theater of philosophy and its parallels in Beijing Opera, Kathikali Dance Drama and Nō Theater; Deleuze’s concept of the fold and sonic space in Asian architecture; the fold and visual space in Hokusai’s “Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji”; the Walkman, contemporary Japanese anomie and Deleuzian nomadism; Deleuzian “faciality” and the cultural politics of facial images in Korean beauty pageants; the 2011 Taiwanese film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale and the Deleuzian concepts of the minor and the people to come; Deleuzian haecceities, affects and fragmented spaces in the films of Lou Ye and Wong Kar-wai; the Nu Shu writing system – the only writing system developed exclusively by women – and the formation of a female people to come; and Deleuzian minor literature and its relationship to globalization, nationalism and regionalism in Asian literature.

These essays map new directions in East-West research that promise to invigorate Asian studies and disclose hitherto unrecognized dimensions of Deleuze’s thought.