Deleuze and Rhythm

The main theme of Deleuze's book on Leibniz is how the latter's system reflects Baroque characteristics, and, indeed, Deleuze eventually shows the relation between Leibniz' conceptual and the musical senses of 'harmony'. However, the presentation includes no treatment of Rhythm. Furthermore, despite the etymological root of 'rhythm' in 'flow', there is little attention to Rhythm in either the texts of recognized philosophers of Flux, such as Bergson and Whitehead, or in Deleuze's interpretations of them. Deleuze does marginally refer to it in Difference and Repetition, but only as a brief illustration of his concept of Repetition. In contrast, Rhythm is a central topic in, say, Dewey's Art as Experience. Hence, on the basis of Deleuze's thesis that Philosophy reflects Culture, the scarcity of consideration of Rhythm in the works of eminent pioneering European thinkers perhaps expresses a lack of exposure to African musical traditions.