This book assesses and contrasts the reading styles of two major French philosophers, Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze. Both men share a historical and intellectual tradition and worked alongside each other in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vincennes, Paris. Jean-Jacques Lecercle seeks to address the French critical corpus often neglected in English writing on Deleuze, as well as contributing to the critical account of Badiou which remains limited in both philosophical cultures. He examines the philosophy of literature that can be derived from their work, contrasting the analytic and the continental philosophies of literature: the difference between Deleuze and Badiou will involve a contrast between Deleuze's aesthetics and Badiou's inaesthetics; their common ground will be found in a politics of literature.