How do you make yourself a body without organs? Using Knausgard’s «My struggle» as an ethical case

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Finn Janning
Independent researcher
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7845-4510

Abstract: The concept of “the body without organs” takes up a great part of the oeuvre of Deleuze and Guattari. Yet, it is difficult to answer their question—“How do you make yourself a body without organs?”—or to understand their answer. In this paper, I propose that the body without organs is an ethical concept. To support this assertion, I relate, especially, Deleuze’s thought on the Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård’s auto-fictive project, My Struggle, suggesting that My Struggle can be read as a body without organs. By doing so, I aim at two things: first, to illustrate a possible application of Deleuze’s ethic, and, second, to show how such an ethic may guide us regarding what we ought to do.

Paraules clau
body without organs, ethics, affirmative, Knausgård, Deleuze

Article Details

Com citar
Janning, Finn. “How do you make yourself a body without organs? Using Knausgard’s «My struggle» as an ethical case”. Ramon Llull Journal of Applied Ethics, vol.VOL 1, no. 12, pp. 55-70, doi:10.34810/rljaev1n12id389299.
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(c) Ramon Llull Journal of Applied Ethics, 2021

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