Eugene W. Holland

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Eugene Willam Holland
Born (1953-04-13) April 13, 1953
Academic background
EducationYale University (BA)
University of California, San Diego (PhD)
Academic work
DisciplineSocial theory; critical theory
InstitutionsOhio State University

Eugene William Holland (born April 13, 1953)[1] is an American scholar of interdisciplinary social and critical theory and professor emeritus at Ohio State University.[2][3] His scholarship focuses on the philosophy and political economy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. He is the author of five monographs, including widely cited reader's guides to Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. Historian François Dosse identifies Holland as part of the early anglophone reception of Deleuze and Guattari's work.[4]

Early life and education

Holland studied philosophy and French literature at Yale University.[5] In 1974 he enrolled in the doctoral program in comparative literature at the University of California, San Diego,[6] where he studied with Fredric Jameson and first encountered Anti-Oedipus in Jameson's seminar, later organizing a reading group that worked through the text over several months.[4] When Jameson departed UCSD, Holland selected Michel de Certeau and Richard Terdiman as his dissertation co-directors.[3][7] He received a grant from the French government to conduct dissertation research in Paris, during which he attended Deleuze's film seminars at Paris-VIII in the early 1980s.[4]

Career

After completing his doctorate, Holland held a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Rice University, where he participated in the Culture of Capital research program.[7] He subsequently held an appointment as assistant professor of French at the University of Iowa.[8] In 1985 he was appointed to the faculty of Ohio State University, where he taught in the Department of Comparative Studies.[3] He was granted emeritus status effective June 1, 2017.[9]

Scholarship

Holland's scholarship examines the relationship between political economy, psychoanalysis, and cultural theory, with sustained attention to Deleuze and Guattari. His first monograph, Baudelaire and Schizoanalysis (Cambridge University Press, 1993), applies schizoanalytic concepts to nineteenth-century French literature. The Times Literary Supplement described it as "a splendid example of passionate theorizing."[10]

His 1999 introduction to Anti-Oedipus was reviewed in MLN.[11]

Holland describes his theoretical approach as "minor Marxism," a reading of Deleuze and Guattari that retains elements of Marxist political economy while rejecting teleological models of historical change.[12] A related concept, "nonlinear historical materialism," draws on complexity theory and Rosa Luxemburg's Accumulation of Capital to argue for a contingent account of historical development.[13]

His book Nomad Citizenship proposes a "slow-motion general strike," understood as a gradual collective withdrawal from capitalist markets.[14] Within this framework, Holland uses jazz group improvisation as a model for collective activity coordinated without central command.[15]

His most recent monograph, Perversions of the Market, examines sadism, masochism, and the cultural logic of capitalism and has been reviewed in Rethinking Marxism.[16]

Selected works

Books

  • Baudelaire and Schizoanalysis: The Socio-Poetics of Modernism (Cambridge University Press, 1993)
  • Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis (Routledge, 1999)
    • Turkish translation: Deleuze ve Guattari'nin Anti-Oedipus'u: Şizoanalize Giriş (Otonom Yayıncılık, 2007)[17]
  • Nomad Citizenship: Free-Market Communism and the Slow-Motion General Strike (University of Minnesota Press, 2011)
  • Deleuze and Guattari's "A Thousand Plateaus": A Reader's Guide (Bloomsbury/Continuum, 2013)
    • Chinese translation: 导读德勒兹与加塔利《千高原》 (Chongqing University Press)[18]
  • Perversions of the Market: Sadism, Masochism, and the Culture of Capitalism (SUNY Press, 2024)

Selected edited volumes and essays

  • Gilles Deleuze: Image and Text, co-edited with Daniel W. Smith and Charles J. Stivale (Continuum, 2009)
  • "Schizoanalysis, Nomadology, Fascism," in Deleuze and Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2008)
  • "Deleuze and Psychoanalysis," in The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze, ed. Daniel W. Smith and Henry Somers-Hall (Cambridge University Press, 2012)[19]
  • "Deleuze and Guattari and Minor Marxism," in (Mis)Readings of Marx in Continental Philosophy (Palgrave, 2014)

References

  1. Date information sourced from Library of Congress Authorities data, via corresponding Library of Congress Linked Data Service: linked authority record n98087953. Retrieved on May 21, 2026.
  2. "Eugene Holland". Department of Comparative Studies, Ohio State University. Retrieved 2026-02-22.
  3. Dosse, François (2010). Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari: Intersecting Lives. Trans. Deborah Glassman. Columbia University Press. p. 473.
  4. Dosse, François (2010). Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari: Intersecting Lives. Trans. Deborah Glassman. Columbia University Press. p. 472.
  5. Holland, Eugene W. (2025-03-18). "A Life Becoming Deleuzian". Edinburgh University Press Blog. Retrieved 2026-02-22.
  6. "Eugene Holland". Department of Comparative Studies, Ohio State University. Retrieved 2026-02-22.
  7. Holland, Eugene W. (2024). Perversions of the Market: Sadism, Masochism, and the Culture of Capitalism. SUNY Press. p. ix.
  8. "Eugene W. Holland". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2026-02-22. Gene Holland, Assistant Professor of French at University of Iowa, is completing a book on late 19th-century French culture entitled The Culture of Masochism.
  9. "Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes, June 9, 2017" (PDF). Ohio State University. Retrieved 2026-02-22.
  10. Robb, Graham (1993). "Review of Baudelaire and Schizoanalysis". Times Literary Supplement.
  11. Bell, Jeffrey A. (2000). "Review of Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus". MLN. 115 (5): 1059–1061. doi:10.1353/mln.2000.0055.
  12. Holland, Eugene W. (2014). "Deleuze and Guattari and Minor Marxism". (Mis)Readings of Marx in Continental Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan.
  13. Holland, Eugene W. (2006). "Nonlinear Historical Materialism and Postmodern Marxism". Culture, Theory and Critique. 47 (2).
  14. "Communism Lite? Review of Nomad Citizenship". Review 31. Retrieved 2026-02-22.
  15. Holland, Eugene W. (2004). "Studies in Applied Nomadology: Jazz Improvisation and Postcapitalist Markets". Deleuze and Music. Edinburgh University Press.
  16. "Review of Perversions of the Market". Rethinking Marxism. Retrieved 2026-02-22.
  17. Deleuze, Gilles; Holland, Eugene W. (2007). Deleuze ve Guattari'nin Anti-Oedipus'u: Şizoanalize Giriş (in Turkish). Otonom Yayıncılık.
  18. Holland, Eugene W. 导读德勒兹与加塔利《千高原》 (in Chinese). Chongqing University Press.
  19. Holland, Eugene W. (2012). "Deleuze and psychoanalysis". In Smith, Daniel W.; Somers-Hall, Henry (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze. Cambridge University Press. pp. 307–326. doi:10.1017/CCO9780511758177.016.