On the notion of the political in postmarxist theory.


Syllabus 2010

On micropolitics

In the forthcoming seminar series, we will focus on the concepts of becoming and molecular politics elaborated by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in "A thousand plateaus" and "Anti-Oedipus". This discussion will be supplemented by a reconsideration of Deleuze's readings of Nietzsche, Spinoza and Tarde.

Particularily, I would like to pay attention to two questions: how does Deleuze use the concepts of force, affect, and micrological relationalities in Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Tarde in order to construct an ontology of becoming, and, secondly, how does the ontological perspective of Deleuze and Guattari's thought (infinite pure becoming) relate to their political perspective of actively producing a concatanation of forces that subverts and decomposes the dominant social relations.

In the second part of the seminar, we will confront the legacy of micropolitics with two opposing approaches, today's nouvelle vague of Leninism, and Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe's left-heideggerian idea of politics retreating.

February: Becoming (4/2 11 am)

— Gilles Deleuze/Félix Guattari (1980): A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Chapter 10: 1730 – Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible ..., Minneapolis and London: The University of Minnesota Press, 2005, pp. 237- 268 top; 272 (Memories of a molecule) - 276 middle; 278 – 282 middle, 291 – 294 middle

— Video: Gilles Deleuze/ Claire Parnet: Abécédaire. A comme animal, Paris: Montparnasse, 2004, http://www.langlab.wayne.edu/CStivale/D-G/ABC1.html
English transcript by Dominique Hurth

— introduced by Oxana Timofeeva

March: Deleuze with Nietzsche: The Negative in the Positive (4/3 6 pm)

— Gilles Deleuze (1962): Nietzsche and Philosophy, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006, Chapter II, Active and Reactive, pp. 39-72

— introduced by Nathaniel Boyd

The thought of becoming. Deleuze with Nietzsche II (5/3 8 pm)
— Guest Lecture by Kathrin Thiele

April: Deleuze with Spinoza: Affectivity and potentiality–"Joy makes you intelligent" (8/4 6 pm)

— Gilles Deleuze: On Spinoza. Cours Vincennes, 24/01/1978
http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/texte.php?cle=14&groupe=Spinoza&langue=2

Screening: "Assemblages" by Angela Melitopoulos and Maurizio Lazzarato (tbc)
Guest Lecture by A. Melitopoulos and M. Lazzarato on Guattari's notion of politics (tbc)

May: Molecular Politics I (27/5 6 pm)

— Gilles Deleuze/ Félix Guattari (1980): A thousand plateaus, Chapter 9: 1933: Micropolitics and Segmentarity, Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1987, pp. 208-231

[— Gabriel Tarde (1899): Social Laws. An Outline of Sociology, Kitchener, Batoche Books, 2000 http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/tarde/laws.pdf]

Screening: "Race d'Ep" ("The homosexual century") by Guy Hocquenghem/Lionel Soukaz, F 1979 (tbc)
Guest Lecture by Zsuzsa Barross on Deleuze and deconstruction (tbc)

June: Desire/ desire (30 June, 1 July)

Workshop CLiC/ After 1968/ Mladen Dolar
On desire (Lacan) and becoming (Deleuze, Guattari)

The text I would like to comment on during the workshop:

— Gilles Deleuze/ Félix Guattari (1991): What is philosophy?, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994, Chapter: The plane of immanence, pp. 35-60

October: Molecular politics II (4-5/10)

"Stronger are the powers of the people"
Politics, poetics and popular education in Brazilian cinema, 1962-1984
Lecture and Screening by Rodrigo Nunes (Sao Paolo)

Screening: Cinco vezes favela (Five times favela), various, B 1962, 92 min
Terra em transe (Land in anguish), Glauber Rocha, B1967, 106 min, or:
O Dragão da Maldade contra o Santo Guerreiro (Antônio das Mortes), Glauber Rocha, B 1969, 110 min
A Queda (The Fall), Ruy Guerra, B 1976

Additional Lecture: Rodrigo Nunes: Subject, event, separation: the politics of Deleuze and Badiou

Molecular Capital (6/10 6 pm)

— Gilles Deleuze/ Félix Guattari (1972): Anti-Oedipus, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, Chapter III, 9, 10: The Civilised Capitalist Machine, Capitalist Representation, pp. 222-262

— introduced by Kerstin Stakemeier

November: Neo-Leninism (4/11)

— Alain Badiou: One divides itself into Two. In Lenin Reloaded. Toward a Politics of Truth, ed. by Budgen, Kouvelakis, Zizek, Durham and London: Duke University Pr, 2007, pp. 7-17

— Sylvain Lazarus: Lenin and the Party, 1902-November 1917. In Lenin Reloaded, pp. 255-268

— Etienne Balibar: The Philosophical Moment in Politics Determined by War: Lenin 1914-1916, In Lenin Reloaded, pp. 207-221

— Negri: What to do today with What is to be done, or rather: The Body of the General Intellect, In Lenin Reloaded, pp. 297-307

December: Retreat (2/12)

— Jean-Luc Nancy/ Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1981,1983): Retreating the political, London and New York: Routledge, 1997, Chapters: Foreword to the Centre for Philosophical Research on the Political, Opening Adress to the CPRP, The retreat of the political, pp. 105-142

[— Jean Luc Nancy: La Comparution /The Compearance: From the Existence of "Communism" to the Community of "Existence", In Political Theory, Vol. 20, No. 3, (Aug., 1992), pp. 371-398]