@article{ART003343737},
author={Arum LEE},
title={The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -},
journal={Journal of Humanities},
issn={1598-8457},
year={2026},
number={101},
pages={243-280}
TY - JOUR
AU - Arum LEE
TI - The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -
JO - Journal of Humanities
PY - 2026
VL - null
IS - 101
PB - Institute for Humanities
SP - 243
EP - 280
SN - 1598-8457
AB - This paper aims to elucidate the meaning of immanence in Deleuze’s philosophy. Because immanence is a plane on which being is thought without any transcendent ground, its meaning cannot be fully disclosed through abstract concepts alone - which is why Deleuze developed his philosophy by way of literature and art. Taking a reading of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian a s its concrete path, this paper shows how immanence becomes manifest within the concrete dimension of a life. Examining Deleuze’s critique of the image of thought in Difference and Repetition and the concepts of assemblage and deterritorialization in A Thousand Plateaus, it clarifies a shift from the horizon of t he s ubject to t he p lane o f immanence, a nd f rom the question o f what t he human is to what we can become. Assemblage is not an analytic framework applied to immanence from outside, but the very way becoming (devenir) is organized and transformed upon it. From this perspective, the “ordinary woman” is an assemblage in which corporeal, semiotic, and socio-political strata interlock, and Yeong-hye’s vegetarianism is an event that disarticulates it.
Her becoming-plant is an absolute deterritorialization refusing an entire assemblage in which a life, while consumed as a means of sustaining others, must itself consume other lives - the very condition of a human existence that can live only by killing and eating. The affective force of this becoming is transmitted to In-hye and to the reader, opening onto another life. By interweaving the literary theory of “Literature and Life” with the analysis of the novel, the paper demonstrates that the becoming generated by literature converges with the ultimate trajectory of Deleuze’s philosophy - the liberation of impersonal life (Vie) and the invention of a people to come - and thus that immanence is, in the end, “life” itself, the source and condition of all becoming.
KW - Deleuze;Han Kang;The Vegetarian;immanence;becoming (devenir);assemblage (agencement)
DO -
UR -
ER -
Arum LEE. (2026). The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -. Journal of Humanities, 101, 243-280.
Arum LEE. 2026, "The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -", Journal of Humanities, no.101, pp.243-280.
Arum LEE "The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -" Journal of Humanities 101 pp.243-280 (2026) : 243.
Arum LEE. The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -. 2026; 101 : 243-280.
Arum LEE. "The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -" Journal of Humanities no.101(2026) : 243-280.
Arum LEE. The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -. Journal of Humanities, 101, 243-280.
Arum LEE. The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -. Journal of Humanities. 2026; 101 243-280.
Arum LEE. The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -. 2026; 101 : 243-280.
Arum LEE. "The Philosophy of Immanence and the Generative Power of Literature - Reading The Vegetarian through Deleuze and Deleuze through The Vegetarian -" Journal of Humanities no.101(2026) : 243-280.
