Is retreat a metaphor?

Lecture presented during the 2012 Banff Research in Culture research residency. Malabou takes head on the significance of the concept of 'retreat' and the theoretical operations it performs, by probing what retreat and withdrawal tell us about our ontological and epistemological condition. As she interrogates the metaphysics of retreat, we are reminded repeatedly of the significant of the physical and neurobiological in the philosophical, an area of research in which the author has played a critical framing role.