Reconceptualist and post‐reconceptualist curriculum scholars have drawn upon the notion of a complicated curriculum conversation as a means to describe the imbricated, pluralist, and eclectic character of curriculum theorizing. Insofar as this curriculum conversation is accomplished via language however, it remains wed to a particular representational logic restricting what might be thought. This essay explores the question of what it means to theorize curriculum when the very idea of a complicated curriculum conversation begins to fall into cliché. Mobilizing the philosophical (...) thought of Gilles Deleuze, this essay analyzes three representational commitments of contemporary curriculum theorizing, addressing how each are inadequate for the theorization of difference or the instantiation of the radically new. Against the implicit commitment to conformity alive in the curriculum field, this essay posits an ethics of disidentification exemplified via Bruce McDonald's horror film Pontypool. It is via such a tactic of productive disidentification, this essay claims, that thought might be unfettered from the orthodoxies of common sense, becoming in this way more adequate for opening spaces unanticipated by contemporary representational regimes. (shrink)

Explores the continuities and discontinuities in the work of Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze.

Exploring the evolution of the conceptual persona of the idiot from the philosophical idiot in Deleuze to the Russian idiot in Deleuze and Guattari, this article suggests that their use of the figure of Antonin Artaud as a model for an idiocy that is freed from the image of thought is problematic since Artaud in fact evinces a nostalgia for the capacity for thought. The article invites the writings of Kathy Acker and argues that Acker makes possible a more successful (...) way of thinking of the event of thought beyond the Image and thereby a new conceptual persona of the post-Russian idiot. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze (January 18, 1925–November 4, 1995) was one of the most influential and prolific French philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. Deleuze conceived of philosophy as the production of concepts, and he characterized himself as a “pure metaphysician.” In his magnum opus Difference and Repetition , he tries to develop a metaphysics adequate to contemporary mathematics and science—a metaphysics in which the concept of multiplicity replaces that of substance, event replaces essence and virtuality replaces possibility. Deleuze (...) was also well-known for a number of important monographs he published in the history of philosophy (on Hume, Nietzsche, Kant, Bergson, Spinoza, Foucault, and Leibniz), as well as for his writings on the various arts, which include a two- volume study of the cinema, books on Proust and Sacher-Masoch, a monograph on the painter Francis Bacon, and a collection of essays on literature. Deleuze considered these latter works as pure philosophy, and not criticism, since he sought to create the concepts that correspond to the artistic practices of painters, filmmakers, and writers. In 1968, he met Félix Guattari, a political activist and radical psychoanalyst, with whom he wrote several works, among them the two-volume Capitalism and Schizophrenia , comprised of Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980). Their final collaboration was What is Philosophy? (1991). (shrink)

Twentieth-century thought appears as a collective project aimed at dismantling metaphysical hierarchies in all their relays across the fields of human culture. Central to this project has been the...

This article explores the affinities between film and philosophy by returning to a shared meditation on death and the nature of time. Death has been considered the muse of philosophy and can also be considered the muse of film-philosophy. But what does it mean to say that to film-philosophise is to learn to die, or a kind of training for dying? Film is an artistic object that reminds us of death’s inevitability; it is a meditation on the transient and finite (...) nature of time. Films as diverse as Mizoguchi’s Tales of Ugetsu, Resnais’s Hiroshima mon Amour, and Guzmán’s Nostalgia for the Light take an uncanny approach to the subject, expressing the paradoxical coexistence of life and death and of different temporal dimensions. This article explores the philosophical concept of the death-image and time through a Deleuzian approach to cinema, meditating on the flashback, the coexistence of the present and the past, and the emergence of a new type of Lazarean character – one who returns from the dead. The article aims to clarify not simply death’s unquestionable omnipresence in film but also cinema’s role as a contemporary version of the trope of memento mori. (shrink)

This thesis attempts to describe and interpret the design practice of an American architect, Frank O. Gehry through concepts developed by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and his collaborator, French psychotherapist, philosopher and activist, Félix Guattari. At the same time, prototyping a website-based interactive project called PLATEAU GEHRY_CONNECTIVES, it explores an alternative form for the Doctoral thesis. In addition to connections with visual arts, such as painting and cinema, the experimental project PLATEAU GEHRY_CONNECTIVES includes references to concepts and phenomena from various (...) areas of knowledge revealing distinctive, unusual qualities of Gehry’s creative approach in the production of design artefacts. The thesis documents and discusses means of representation in architectural design fused into the specific creative culture of Frank O. Gehry. It notices that the discourse in architectural theory and practice, often neglects what occurs on a particular molecular level of the architectural design process. It shows that elements of micro-level of design procedures render Gehry’s idiosyncratic design phenomena intelligible and perceptible in a new way. It claims that it has been possible because Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts become perceptibly operational in the interpretation of such phenomena, at the level of elementary units of Gehry’s design procedures. Moreover, through this close-up perspective, the thesis’ investigations identify certain similarities in the operational modes of the architect and the painter. It demonstrates how Gehry, who has anchored his interest in painting, and specifically in what he defined as ‘immediacy in painting,’ was able to transform the practice of architectural drawing from projective to a cognitive one. It also shows, how the architect re-defines the commonly applied projective geometries from passive, arbitrary role to an active agent, and how the architect links drawing practice with the construction process on a new, almost palpable level. While stressing its the manual character, the thesis demonstrates that Gehry’s explorative culture of challenging means of representation employed in architectural design production facilitates the re-disciplining of architecture culminating in the integration of the CATIA system in the design procedures. This study of Gehry’s design actions and strategies can help the reader to understand the significance of experimental and intuitive design practices. The thesis proposes the Deleuzian interpretation of Gehry’s experiments in the aesthetics of design thinking and acting. It renders perceptions of patterns, according to which, other design practices can operate. (shrink)

Radikalne mogućnosti stvaranja u filozofiji i književnosti konstantna su preokupacija filozofske misli Gillesa Deleuzea. Oblikujući mnogobrojne heterogene konstrukte mišljenja i pisanja, ukazuje na nestabilnost inertnih sustava, kritizira logiku reprezentacije i odnose moći, te raspravlja o afirmaciji razlika. Ovim radom nastoji se elaborirati odnos filozofije i književnosti upravo kroz analizu jezika i otpora. Naime, Deleuze inzistira na razlikama između filozofije i književnosti, ali, istovremeno, istražuje načine kako interferiraju i međusobno se transformiraju. Iz tog razloga, zanimat će nas kako autor, s pozicije (...) filozofije, upotrebljava teorijski aparat i pristupa prostoru književnosti, gdje taj »strani jezik« izaziva inventivne izgrede i intervenira u diskurzivne odnose moći. Razumijevano kao proces neprekidnih postajanja, pisanje stvara razlike i otvara drugačije mogućnosti mišljenja, bivanja, života. Međutim, radikalni potencijal ovako shvaćene tekstualne performativnosti, čak možemo reći političnost pisanja, nije a priori zajamčena, jednako kao što subverzivnost nije neosporivi i održivi učinak istoga. Naprotiv, Deleuze, na tragu filozofa poststrukturalističke provenijencije, pisanje i otpor razumijeva kao nezaustavljivi, intenzivni proces, i to u kontekstu specifične estetičko-političke odgovornosti. (shrink)

This paper draws from resources in the work of Deleuze to critically examine the notion of organicism and holistic relations that appear in historical forerunners that Jung identifies in his work on synchronicity. I interpret evidence in Jung's comments on synchronicity that resonate with Deleuze's interpretation of repetition and time and which challenge any straightforward foundationalist critique of Jung's thought. A contention of the paper is that Jung and Deleuze envisage enchanted openings onto relations which are not constrained by the (...) presupposition of a bounded whole, whether at the level of the macrocosm or the microcosm. Openings to these relations entail the potential for experimental transformation beyond sedentary habits of thought which are blocked by a disenchanting ‘image of thought’ that stands in need of critique. Other examples of enchanted openings in Jung's work are signposted in an effort to counter their marginalisation in some post-Jungian critiques and to signal their potential value from a Deleuzian perspective. (shrink)

Straipsnis skiriamas prancūzų aktoriaus, poeto, scenaristo, žiaurumo teatro idėjos autoriaus Antonino Artaud idėjų pėdsakų šifravimui Gilles’io Deleuze’o kino filosofijoje. Straipsnyje keliami klausimai: kuo Artaud idėjų traktuotė antrajame knygos „Kinas“ tome „Vaizdinys-laikas“ skiriasi nuo čia pat aptariamų rusų režisieriaus Sergejaus Eisensteino idėjų įtakos? Kaip modernaus kino filosofijoje veikia Deleuze’ui svarbi Artaud mintis apie pamatinę minties bejėgystę, įkūnytą pačioje mintyje? Ar iš Artaud pasiskolintas „kūno be organų“ konceptas išveda į kasdienį ir ceremonijų kūną, apie kurį rašo Deleuze’as kaip apie modernaus kino ženklą? (...) Straipsnyje prieinama prie išvados, kad visgi galima išskirti dvi Deleuze’o iš Artaud perimtas kūno traktuotes: iki-šizofrenišką pozų ir gestų kūną, kuris sudaro pamatinę „žiaurumo teatro“ konceptualinę šerdį ir kuria remiasi Deleuze’as, rašydamas apie modernaus kino tapsmą, bei šizofrenišką „kūną be organų“, kuris turėjo įtakos Deleuze’o ir Guattari tyrimams. Pamatinė straipsnyje ginama tezė: tiriant teorines įtakas Deleuze’o modernaus kino filosofijai, neįmanoma apeiti ir nepastebėti Artaud. (shrink)

In What is Philosophy?, Deleuze and Guattari make the claim that ‘[i]t may be that believing in this world, in this life, becomes our most difficult task, or the task of a mode of existence still to be discovered on our plane of immanence today. This is the empiricist conversion.’ What are we to make of such a calling? The paper explicates why and in what sense this statement is of exemplary significance both for an appropriate understanding of Deleuze's political (...) thought and for a most timely conceptualisation of politics in a world so clearly defined by immanence, and nothing but immanence. I argue that Deleuze's rigorously constructive approach to the world is not beyond politics, as some recent readings have declared (e.g. those of Badiou and Hallward). Rather, we have to appreciate that in Deleuze and Guattari's demand for a ‘belief in this world’ the political intersects with the dimension of the ethical in such a way that our understanding of both is transformed. Only after this ‘empiricist conversion’ can we truly think of a Deleuzian politics that does justice to a plane of immanence ‘immanent only to itself’. (shrink)

_Explores the continuities and discontinuities in the work of Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze._.

While Deleuze and Guattari's passion for certain literature is well known, the nature of a ‘Deleuzian’ literary criticism remains an open question. However, most critics appear to agree that Deleuze and Guattari's comments on meaning and interpretation offer an ontological alternative to the textual focus of deconstruction. Through an interrogation of the difficult style of their books in relation to Plato, Nietzsche and Derrida, this paper offers a different reading of Deleuze and Guattari in relation to literary criticism. Despite appearances, (...) transcendental empiricism and the project of ‘overturning Platonism’ provide a Deleuzian theory of reading that attends to textuality. (shrink)