12 Mondays: Aug 11, Aug 18, Aug 25, Sept 1, Sept 8, Sept 29, Oct 6, Oct 13, Oct 20, Oct 27, Nov 10, Nov 17
Michel Foucault once quipped that "one day, perhaps, the century will be known as Deleuzean." Often taken to be an unrestrained endorsement of the philosophy of his friend and colleague Gilles Deleuze, le siècle can mean both "the century" and "the in-crowd". As it has turned out, both meanings appear to have come to pass. Deleuze's work is as popular now as it has ever been, throughout the humanities and social sciences. At the same time, a lot of this popularity is based around a kind of mash-up of his various books, in which all attention to detail is lost, and from which emerges a thinker with little to recommend him beyond certain clichéd utterances.
The aim of this set of lectures will be to examine in outline each of Deleuze's books, one at a time. In doing so, the aim will be to uncover not a synoptic overview of "the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze," but rather to grasp each moment of this philosophy on its own terms. In this way, we will come closer to this philosophy (if there is one such philosophy) as he presents it.
The course is recommended to anyone with an interest in engaging with Deleuze beyond the dogmatic image of his thought that circulates in many quarters today.
Course Schedule
Aug 11: Anti-Oedipus
Aug 18: Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature
Aug 25: A Thousand Plateaus 1
Sept 1: A Thousand Plateaus 2
Sept 8: A Thousand Plateaus 3
Break
Sept 29: Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation
Oct 6: Cinema 1: The Movement-Image
Oct 13: Cinema 2: The Time-Image
Oct 20: Foucault
Oct 27: The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque
Break
Nov 10: What is Philosophy?
Nov 17: Question and Answer