This paper interrogates the intersection of Gilles Deleuze's transcendental empiricism with Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time and Stéphane Mallarmé's Symbolist poetics, emphasizing the virtual plane of immanence over actual manifestations. In Deleuze's framework (Difference and Repetition, Proust and Signs), the virtual—a field of pure differences and intensities—precedes and exceeds the actual, actualized through processes of differentiation rather than resemblance. Proust mirrors this in involuntary memory, where sensory surfaces reveal resonant essences, privileging virtual multiplicities over linear time. Mallarmé extends this Deleuzian focus on virtuality through his theory of negation: poetic forms negate or abolish the actual (e.g., absences, voids, the blank page) to arrive at the virtual essence, creating subtractive paths that evoke infinite ideals without dialectical opposition or representational closure. This matrix critiques representational hierarchies, fostering ethical becomings and political resistances—aligning with PCAH2026's themes of humanity, ethics, and global citizenship. In a technological era, it affirms AI's potential as machinic assemblages producing novelty, while critiquing its surfacial repetitions that obscure virtual depths. By transversalizing literary production across philosophy and poetics, the analysis envisions immanent creativities that challenge essentialism, inviting interdisciplinary dialogues on consciousness, knowledge, and aesthetics.

Authors:
Bradley McLean, University of Toronto, Canada

About the Presenter(s)
Professor Bradley H. McLean, faculty at Toronto School of Theology, U of Toronto (23+ years). Interests: continental philosophy, French lit, Deleuzian modernism. Current project: intersection of Deleuze, Proust and Mallarmé.

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