Eugene W. Holland

Holland studied philosophy and French literature at Yale University.^[5][6] In 1974 he enrolled in the doctoral program in comparative literature at the University of California, San Diego,^[7] 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 [fr] as his dissertation co-directors.^[3][8] 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]

After completing his doctorate, Holland held a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Rice University, where he participated in the Culture of Capital research program.^[8] He subsequently held an appointment as assistant professor of French at the University of Iowa.^[9] 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.^[10]

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."^[11]

His 1999 introduction to Anti-Oedipus was reviewed in MLN.^[12]

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.^[13] 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.^[14]

His book Nomad Citizenship proposes a "slow-motion general strike," understood as a gradual collective withdrawal from capitalist markets.^[15] Within this framework, Holland uses jazz group improvisation as a model for collective activity coordinated without central command.^[16]

His most recent monograph, Perversions of the Market, examines sadism, masochism, and the cultural logic of capitalism and has been reviewed in Rethinking Marxism.^[17]