Intensive Resonances

Arthur C. Wolf’s Intensive Resonances is a creative, remarkable, and rigorous study that nurtures itself mainly from two fields: the so-called continental European philosophy (most specifically, the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze) and the already consolidated field of philosophy for children, contemporarily founded by Matthew Lipman and Ann Margares Sharp. For those scholarly interested in the work of Gilles Deleuze, the book opens many unexpected windows in terms of the educational unfoldings of his work. For those interested and working in philosophy for children, it is possible to not only deepen and put into question the foundation of the enterprise, but also to acknowledge and imagine different possibilities of practices. In effect, these ‘intensive resonances’ have multiple implications, intersections, and crossings with practitioners and scholars focused on the relationships between education, philosophy, and community. In a time when thinking is more attacked and needed than ever, Intensive Resonances is an indispensable source of inspiration not only for scholars in the humanities but also for teachers, artists, and all sorts of practitioners who are not disposed to give up thinking. -- Walter Omar Kohan * Rio de Janeiro State University *

Intensive Resonances is both a much-needed and a most unusual book. Tracing the deep-seated historical dichotomy between affect and thinking, Arthur Wolf develops the implications of an affective theory of thinking. With Deleuze as his principal interlocutor, he neither shies away from philosophical depth nor loses sight of concrete experience. Moving deftly between philosophical reflection and pedagogical practice, Wolf does more than argue that affect and thinking are intertwined: he demonstrates how thinking and affect are two sides of one movement.

The result is a playful and compelling back and forth between the historical unraveling of dualism and the immediate question of what its undoing might mean for our everyday encounters with students in the classroom. Rather than diminishing philosophical depth, the concrete dialogues and pedagogical examples draw us into deeper thinking, inviting us to become participants rather than remote bystanders. Conversely, the philosophical excursions never lose touch with lived experience: with what is authentically felt, how we relate to one another, and how we inhabit the world as democratic citizens. In this way, Intensive Resonances succeeds in bringing philosophy and pedagogy into a genuinely productive resonance, where each transforms and intensifies the other.

-- Barbara Weber * University of British Columbia *