DELEUZE/BADIOU

I have recently become interested in the relation between Deleuze and Badiou in the late 80s/early 90s. I think Badiou hit Deleuze hard with his review of THE FOLD in 1989. In consequence Deleuze and Guattari’s WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? can be seen as more than just a retroactive methodological treatise. Deleuze’s book THE FOLD  is anomalous in that it is a return to his pre-Guattari style. The concept of the « fold » as noun is also anomalous, in that it is seemingly synchronic, where it should be the more diachronic: the verb « to fold », but maybe that would not have been a good title for a book. Badiou was strategically adroit in choosing this book to launch his polemic with Deleuze, as it is more classical in style and so an easier target. It also lent itself to what has been his strategy ever since in all his writings on Deleuze: the radical de-Guattarisation of Deleuze. In particular, we can see his later writings as an attempt to link the Deleuze of WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? to that of LOGIC OF SENSE, as if the intervening 22 years had never existed philosophically.