Deleuze – 100. Thinking is an Event
08/10/2025, LU Mazā aula
09:00-09:30 Registration, Morning coffee
09:30-10:00 Opening
10:00-11:00
Automated Play: Deleuze’s Logics of Creative Thinking
Corry Shores, Middle East Technical University, Ankara
PLENARY LECTURE
(Chair: Zane Ozola)
Corry Shores teaches Philosophy at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. He works primarily on phenomenology and Gilles Deleuze’s aesthetics and philosophy of logic. He authored the book The Logic of Gilles Deleuze: Basic Principles (Bloomsbury, 2021). His most recent works include: “Deviant Gestures: Deleuze’s Communicative Disruption” (Deleuze and Guattari Studies, 2024), “Ha-Ha-Ha! I’m Going to Die! Laughing at Death with Joker, Jerry, and Deleuze” (In Cappuccio, Dunn, and Eberl, eds., Joker and Philosophy: Why so Serious? Wiley, 2025), and “From Bullshit to Gold: Unearthing Deleuze’s Philosophy of Logical Validity” (In Somers-Hall and Bell, eds., The Deleuzian Mind, Routledge, 2025).
Abstract:
Gilles Deleuze’s cinema books are divided according to two main types of cinematic images: the movement-image and the time-image. Yet from his lectures of 1984-85, we learn there is also a third one, the thought-image. Cinema, he says, has the power to set our thinking into self-propelled motion, turning us into the “spiritual automata” that Spinoza and Leibniz spoke of. He examines various kinds of automated thinking in cinema, with the higher types being freer in their movements. However, the freest sort, which is the most capable of creative thinking, in fact finds itself unable to continue its movement of drawing inferences, all while feeling the urgent need to do so. In other words, the event of thinking happens when we can no longer think. In order to move our thinking once more, we must invent new concepts and logics. This resonates with Michael Ardoline’s claim that Deleuze’s metaphysics grounds “logical pluralism,” the view that there are many true logics. Yet this also opens difficult questions about how novel logics could be invented in the ways Deleuze has in mind. To explore these issues, we will turn to Deleuze’s philosophy of play, since he claims both that “to think is to play” and “to think is to create.” This will also allow us to transpose his philosophy of thinking from its context of 20th century cinema to our more contemporary art forms of automated play, especially video games.
11:00-11.30 Coffee break
Section 1
Thinking after Deleuze: Philosophy as Concept Creation
(Chair: Igors Gubenko)
11:30-12:00 Deleuze on Common Sense, in More than One Sense
Aljoša Kravanja, PhD, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Aljoša Kravanja holds a PhD in Kant's philosophy. He is a lecturer at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana. He is also a translator: his translations include Deleuze's Nietzsche and Philosophy and Hobbes's Leviathan.
Abstract:
There are two notions of common sense. The first one derives from Aristotle. He says that we can perceive an object that is at once audible and visible only if there is a common sense (koinē aisthēsis) in which particular senses such as hearing and sight jointly constitute an object. Common sense is the ground on which the senses meet.
The second understanding of common sense derives from Roman rhetoric. For Cicero, sensus communis denotes a sensibility shared by the members of a community. Thus, the love for republic is a part of the Roman common sense.Aristotelian strand denotes an intrapersonal accord among the senses. And the Ciceronian notion refers to the interpersonal accord among people. The paper argues that Deleuze’s theory of common sense combines the two notions.
Deleuze first examines common sense in La philosophie critique de Kant. Kant defined sensus communis as a way of judging that considers everyone else’s manner of thinking (AA V, 293). So, his theory should belong to the Ciceronian (interpersonal) tradition.
Remarkably, Deleuze ignores this, reading Kantian sensus communis as belonging to the Aristotelian (intrapersonal) strand. He locates Kantian common sense in the accord between mental faculties (e.g., Understanding and Imagination): “Now, any accord of the faculties between themselves defines what can be called common sense” (Deleuze 1984 [1963], p. 21). So, just as senses find a common ground in the Aristotelian common sense, so do the faculties cooperate in the Kantian sensus communis. With a sleight of hand, Deleuze moves Kant from the Ciceronian to Aristotelian tradition. In Difference and Repetition (1968), Deleuze retains this analysis, defining common sense as “concordia facultatum”. But he also examines it as a shared or natural condition of man, evoking the Ciceronian strand of the term. In Deleuze, the paper argues, the two notions of common sense find their common ground.
12:00-12:30 Gilles Deleuze on Creation: Towards a Logic of Change?
Francisco J. Alcalá, PhD, Asst. Prof. phil., University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Specialist in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, whose work forms the core of my research, focusing on the intersection of metaphysics and socio-political and cultural thought, PhD at the University of Granada in 2019 with a dissertation on Deleuze’s philosophy of the event. Postdoctoral research has extended this foundation toward a critical rethinking of humanism in light of emerging technologies, combining insights from philosophy, anthropology, ecology, and the philosophy of culture and technology. The aim is to critique transhumanist anthropology and develop an alternative conception of the human inspired by Deleuze’s posthumanism, exploring Baroque thought as an alternative to Cartesian modernity, the critique of transhumanism, pedagogy and ecology, and cultural criticism, particularly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the phenomenon of loneliness. Participated in national R&D projects, all related to Deleuze’s thought, and co-directed a project on lonely subjectivities in recent culture. My career includes research stays in Paris with Anne Sauvagnargues and David Lapoujade, as well as FPU, Margarita Salas, and CIAPOS fellowships. Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela.
Abstract:
Since Michel Foucault remarked on the difficulty of providing a unified description of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy, numerous monographs and specialised studies have sought to offer comprehensive accounts of his thought. Paradoxically, despite decades of scholarship and vast secondary literature on both sides of the Atlantic, no consensus has emerged regarding a coherent Deleuzian “system.” Instead, the field is marked by a succession of interpretations that highlight, as supposed keys to his philosophy, a wide range of aspects that resist integration into a single framework: Deleuze as rigorous historian of philosophy, as metaphysician, as cultural icon, as political activist; Deleuze as philosopher of difference, of the event, of immanence, of sense, of time, of the image… In this presentation, I explore the extent to which the theme of creation—in philosophical, artistic, and socio-political registers—can serve as a guiding thread for approaching Deleuze’s work as a whole, without reducing it to a totalising framework. I then situate this question within the broader problematic of change in reality, with the aim of showing how Deleuze’s reflections on creation might contribute to formulating a logic of change. In doing so, I address the tension between the individual and collective agencies implied by creation and the impersonality of ontological change—or, in Deleuzian terms, between processes of subjectivation and the event. This axis, I argue, may illuminate Deleuze’s posthumanist sensibility beyond the anti-humanism of his era, on which the contemporary relevance of his work depends.
12:30-13:00 Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze as Readers of Sartre’s Transcendence of the Ego: Rethinking the Transcendental Field via Sartre’s Notion of the “Impersonal” or “Pre-Personal”
Arsalan Memon, PhD, Lewis University, USA
Arsalan Memon received his Ph.D. from the University of Memphis in 2012, currently a tenured Associate Professor of Philosophy at Lewis University. His areas of specialization are Merleau-Ponty, phenomenology, existentialism, and twentieth-century Continental/European philosophy. Research interests – Deleuze’s philosophy in general and his transcendental philosophy in particular. Currently completing his first book manuscript, Consciousness as Structure: A Critical Commentary on Merleau-Ponty’s The Structure of Behavior (Lexington Books) to submit by September 21, 2025. Planning to continue working on his second book on Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception.
Abstract:
Sartre’s Transcendence of the Ego opens a decisive path by removing the ego from consciousness and sketching an “impersonal” or “pre-personal” field (3). I argue that both Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze take up this Sartrean insight to rethink the transcendental field in terms of the “impersonal” or “pre-personal,” even as both remain critical of Sartre and diverge sharply from one another.
First, I reconstruct Sartre’s non-egological move and the stakes of calling the transcendental “impersonal” or “pre-personal.” Then I show how Merleau-Ponty radicalizes the transcendental across The Structure of Behavior (SC) and Phenomenology of Perception (PhP): he calls for redefining transcendental philosophy so as to integrate “the phenomenon of the real” (SC 224), which involves an anonymous and impersonal perceptual consciousness, a “One” (PhP 249), as the operative field of sense. Finally, I discuss how Deleuze, via Sartre himself, nonetheless breaks with both Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. In Empiricism and Subjectivity, Difference and Repetition, Logic of Sense, and “Immanence: A Life…” (among other texts), the transcendental becomes a plane of pure immanence (immanence without transcendence) populated by pre-individual singularities, impersonal events, and passive syntheses. The payoff, I claim, is twofold. First, reading Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze as interpreters of Sartre’s notion of the “impersonal” or “pre-personal” clarifies how the “impersonal” or “pre-personal” breaks the egological paradigm in two registers: the transcendental is phenomenologized (Merleau-Ponty) and de-phenomenologized (Deleuze). Second, it shows how Deleuze’s notion of the transcendental allows us to (re)-think the subject and consciousness as products of impersonal genetic processes, not as their conditions (in particular, not as “conditions of possibility”). The paper concludes by critically assessing the residual intentionality of an anonymous and impersonal perceptual consciousness in Merleau-Ponty, and the corresponding gain in Deleuze’s de-phenomenologized account of an impersonal and pre-individual field that is through and through a-subjective, a-intentional, and a-conscious.
13:00-13:30 The Status of Minor Literature: A Study of the Concept from the Perspective of Deleuze
Tomasz Bożk-Gogolewski, PhD(c), University of the National Education Commission Krakow, Poland
Tomasz Bożek-Gogolewski – PhD candidate at the Doctoral School of Humanities at the University of the National Education Commission, Krakow. His doctoral project, titled "Conceptual Boundaries of Humanities: Analysis of the Concepts of Action and Agency within New Materialisms," investigates the evolving philosophical discourse surrounding agency and action within the framework of new materialisms. This research delves into the intersections of philosophy, literature, and cultural studies, aiming to bridge traditional and contemporary materialist theories.
Abstract:
The paper explores the concept of "minor literature" within the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, emphasizing its role as a philosophical tool rather than a taxonomic category. Originating from "Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature," this concept is employed to investigate the interplay between language, power, and creative processes. Philosophy is defined as "the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts," serving as a foundation for examining minor literature as an alliance with Kafka's literary machine, characterized by its "fields," "stakes," and "conceptual personae." Three hypotheses are proposed to analyse the status of minor literature: 1) Deleuze's actions are fundamentally philosophical, equating philosophy with ontology; 2) his philosophical action involves testing the name of Being within thought constraints; 3) a model of Deleuze's processual ontology of literature is proposed. The paper discusses the topology of three modes of thought by Deleuze and Guattari, situating the analytics of the concept as a result of grounding philosophical action. The discussion highlights the literary and philosophical repercussions of employing the concept of minor literature, focusing on stakes, conceptual characters, and emerging issues. Two tendencies in its reception are identified: the "applicative" tendency, which applies the concept to other creators' works, treating the determinants of minor literature as functions and extending theoretical tools to other contexts; and the "taxonomic" tendency, which involves the application and critique of minor literature in "minority" and "second-degree" literatures, as well as in postcolonial studies, emphasizing its capacity to engage with non-European cultures. Ultimately, minor literature is viewed as a way of writing and using language, representing an aspect of becoming and the revolutionary nature of creative acts, underscoring its intrinsic value in both philosophical and literary contexts, highlighting its transformative potential.
13:30-14:30 LUNCH
Section 2
Affect and Percept in Art and Aesthetics
(Chair: Jānis Taurens)
14:30-15:00 The Aesthetics of Masochism
Igors Gubenko, PhD, University of Latvia, The Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Latvia
Igors Gubenko is a philosopher, publicist and curator. He researches and teaches aesthetics, cultural semiotics, French philosophy and psychoanalysis at the University of Latvia, and delivers theory lectures in the doctoral programme at the Latvian Academy of Arts. He has published essays on visual art and cultural criticism in the journals Studija, Arterritory, Satori, Punctum and Kino Raksti. Since 2023 he has been a freelance editor at Satori, an online magazine of culture and independent thought. He has curated solo exhibitions by Daniela Vētra (2023), MAREUNROL’S (2023), Anna Dzērve (2023), Krišs Salmaņš (2023), Voldemārs Johansons (2024), Artūrs Virtmanis (2024) and Miķelis Mūrnieks (2025); the group exhibition “In the Name of Desire” at the Latvian National Museum of Art (together with Līna Birzaka-Priekule and Laura Brokāne) (2024); and the group exhibition “Naked Life” as part of the Cēsis Art Festival (together with the association Mākslas birojs) (2025). He is the author of the texts and co-creator of the public programme for the retrospective “Harmony of Clashes” (2024) of the fashion label Fyodor Golan.
Abstract:
Deleuze is known as the thinker who, in the Western intellectual sphere of the second half of the twentieth century, rekindled interest in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Far less often mentioned is his 1967 work “Presentation of Sacher-Masoch: The Cold and the Cruel,” which disturbed the postwar French intellectual elite’s almost hypnotic fascination with the figure of the Marquis de Sade and confronted the prophet of libertinism with his imagined counterpart — the Vienna-born Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, after whom late-nineteenth-century sexology named the enigmatic impulse for pain and punishment. By shifting attention from sadism to masochism, Deleuze at the same time sought to refute the psychoanalytic idea of the two phenomena as symmetrical, complementary, or even synthesized into a single sadomasochistic phenomenon.
For Deleuze, masochism is not inverted sadism but an autonomous structure with its own particular aesthetics, defined by the primacy of form over matter, the denial of reality and sensuality, the priority of fantasy, coldness and cruelty, the taut suspense of expectation, the untamed power of repetition, and the triumph of humor over feelings of guilt. Deleuze objects to Sigmund Freud’s patriarchal account of masochism, subversively revealing that masochistic theatre stages not the father’s mastery (“beating the child”) but his humiliation and symbolic liquidation. At the same time, however, Deleuze’s reading of masochism remains heteronormative and implicitly Oedipal the punishing instance is always a woman representing the mother, and the one subjected to her cruelty is always a man who must, through his suffering, atone for his resemblance to the father and thereby be reborn as a new person.
Alongside efforts to formulate the aesthetic foundations of Deleuze’s masochism, the lecture will be driven by a polemical question: is it possible to unleash this aesthetic from the mother–father–son Oedipal triangle in which Deleuze, following Sacher-Masoch, chose to imprison it.
Abstrakts
Delēzu pazīst kā domātāju, kurš 20. gadsimta otrās puses Rietumu intelektuālajā telpā atraisīja interesi par Nīčes filozofiju. Daudz retāk tiek pieminēts viņa 1967. gada darbs “Zahera-Mazoha prezentācija. Aukstais un nežēlīgais”, kas iztraucēja pēckara Francijas intelektuālās elites teju hipnotisku fascināciju ar marķīza de Sada figūru un konfrontēja libertīnisma pravieti ar viņa iedomāto pretmetu – Ļvivā dzimušo austriešu rakstnieku Leopoldu fon Zaheru-Mazohu, kura vārdā 19. gadsimta beigu seksoloģija nosaukusi mīklaino tieksmi pēc sāpēm un soda. Īstenojot uzmanības pārvirzi no sadisma uz mazohismu, Delēzs vienlaikus tiecās atspēkot psihoanalīzes uzturēto ideju par abu parādību simetriju, komplementaritāti un pat sintēzi vienotā sadomazohisma fenomenā. Mazohisms, pēc Delēza pārliecības, nav apvērsts sadisms, bet neatkarīga struktūra ar savu īpašo estētiku, ko definē formas pārākums pār matēriju, realitātes un jutekliskuma noliegums, fantāzijas primaritāte, aukstums un nežēlība, saspensa nospriegotas gaidas, nepieradināta atkārtojuma spēks un humora triumfs pār vainas jūtām. Delēzs iebilst Zigmunda Freida sniegtajam patriarhālajam mazohisma skaidrojumam, subversīvi atklājot mazohistiskajā teātrī nevis tēva kundzības izspēli (“Bērnu sit”), bet viņa pazemošanu un simbolisko likvidāciju. Tai pat laikā Delēza mazohisma redzējums paliek heteronormatīvs un implicīti oidipāls – sodoša instance vienmēr ir māti pārstāvoša sieviete, viņas nežēlībai pakļautais – vienmēr vīrietis, kam ar savām ciešanām jāizpērk paša līdzība ar tēvu, lai pārdzimtu jaunā cilvēkā. Priekšlasījuma virzību līdzās centieniem formulēt Delēza mazohisma estētikas pamatus noteiks polemisks jautājums: vai šo estētiku iespējams palaist vaļā no mātes–tēva–dēla oidipālā trīsstūra, kurā Delēzs, sekodams Zaheram-Mazoham, izvēlējies to ieslodzīt.
15:00-15:30 Rhythm and Colour in Deleuze’s Philosophy: Affective Becoming
Ineta Kivle, PhD, University of Latvia, The Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Latvia
Ineta Kivle, PhD, is a leading researcher in the history of ideas at the University of Latvia. Her doctoral thesis titled “Sound, Speech, Voice and Music in Phenomenological Perspective” (2008) gives impetus to further research covering a variety of philosophical and interdisciplinary areas dedicated to sound, colour, rhythm and number. She is a creator of the interdisciplinary research series phronesis - praxis - paideia at the University of Latvia: a chief scientific editor of scientific book series and conference proceedings, and a head of scientific committees of international and local interdisciplinary conferences, a reviewer of scientific monographs and research. Ineta Kivle is the author of more than fifty scientific publications on the philosophy of sound and music, phenomenology, hermeneutics, ancient philosophy and interdisciplinary philosophy in Latvian and English.
Abstract:
This paper proposes an exploration of two key concepts in Deleuze’s philosophy rhythm and colour and their interrelation within the affective field. For Deleuze, rhythm is not reducible to regularity or metric repetition but designates a differentiation of intensities that marks the threshold between chaos and order. Rhythm, understood in this sense, is a condition of becoming, generating a liminal zone between body and environment. Colour, in turn, is treated in Deleuzian aesthetics not as a representational property but as pure intensity. It operates as an effect, directly transforming the visual field into a sensorial event. Like rhythm, colour vibrates as a field of forces that destabilises the boundary between subject and object. I will show how rhythm and colour concepts allow us to think of artworks as dynamic events, highlighting the role of rhythm and colour in the processes of becoming. A primary source: Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Keywords: colour, rhythm, liminality, transformation, dynamic field
Abstrakts
Šajā referātā tiek piedāvāta divu Delēza filosofijā nozīmīgu konceptu — ritma un krāsas — analīze un to savstarpējās saistības aplūkojums afektīvajā laukā. Delēza izpratnē ritms nav reducējams uz regularitāti vai metrisku atkārtošanos, bet gan iezīmē intensitāšu diferenciāciju, kas apzīmē robežu starp haosu un kārtību. Šādā nozīmē ritms ir tapšanas nosacījums, kas rada liminālu zonu starp ķermeni un vidi. Savukārt krāsa Delēza filosofijā tiek aplūkota nevis kā reprezentatīva īpašība, bet kā tīra intensitāte. Tā funkcionē kā afekts, kas pārvērš vizuālo lauku jutekliskā notikumā. Līdzīgi kā ritms, krāsa vibrē kā lauks, kas destabilizē robežu starp subjektu un objektu.
Referātā tiks parādīts, kā ritma un krāsas koncepti ļauj domāt mākslas darbus kā dinamiskus notikumus, izceļot ritma un krāsas nozīmi tapšanas procesos.
Primārais avots: Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (B. Massumi, tulk.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Atslēgvārdi: krāsa, ritms, liminalitāte, transformācija, dinamiskais lauks
15:30-16:00 Between Catastrophe, Cliché, and the People to Come: The Aesthetics of Existence in Deleuze
Camilo Rios, independent researcher from Germany & Maribel Vargas, PhD(c), Austral University of Chile, Human Sciences, Chile
Camilo Rios, independent researcher based in Berlin, Germany. Research interests: societies of control, contemporary processes of subjectivation, post-structuralist philosophy, and the aesthetics of existence. Maribel Vargas, PhD(c) in Human Sciences, Universidad Austral de Chile. Research interests: articulations between art, health, and life from the philosophical perspective of Deleuze and Guattari.
Abstract:
Deleuze’s work on art belongs to a broader philosophical-political wager that configures his vitalism, which we propose to read through Foucault’s notion of an “aesthetics of existence.” Although Deleuze himself never used this concept, we suggest this approach as a limited exercise. This part of his work (including that co-written with Guattari) unfolds a thought of creation and the production of intensities that exceeds the field of art, pointing always toward a relation with life itself. Here we see the development of philosophical-political concepts that find their consistency precisely through this displacement toward the aesthetic: the task is no longer to answer the political question, but to reformulate it through new gestures and notions. To explore this “aesthetics of existence” in Deleuze, we will engage with two key notions: “the people to come” and the chain “chaos–catastrophe–cliché.” The first derives from Bergson’s fabulation, which Deleuze reworks as a procedure that enables becomings. The people are not given; they must be created by undoing identities through becomings that multiply modes of life. The second emerges from his writings on painting, where Deleuze highlights the moment in which creation confronts its own impossibility and the strategies it invents to traverse such an impasse. Deleuze’s treatment of these notions provides crucial clues for thinking an ethics and a politics closer to life ones that need not be framed in the vocabulary of traditional politics but can instead be understood through what we call a “non-optimistic vitalism,” centered on processes of self-production and on the Deleuzian power of creation.
16:00-16:30 Planomena Aesthetics: Artistic Thinking as Concept Creation
Liene Rumpe, MA., Art Academy of Latvia, Latvia
Liene Rumpe (b. 1996) is a painter and installation artist who graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia in 2022 with an MA in Painting. For her master’s installation she received the BDO Young Artist Award (2022), while her solo exhibition Acupuncture for a Cactus (2023, gallery DOM) was nominated for the Purvītis Prize 2025. She is one of the co-founders of the artist-run space DOM and its current director. In her artistic practice Rumpe employs conceptual characters as a method to examine and interrogate particular ideas and archetypal units; with the help of these characters she systematises and constructs her artistic and philosophical universe, which is realised in paintings, installations and texts.
Abstract:
In artistic practice there often exists a tension between the need for an identifiable authorship and the desire to preserve creative variability. How can one avoid becoming trapped in a particular style or theme without losing continuity of ideas? Encountering Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s What Is Philosophy? I found a language for my prior experience: “concepts are an archipelago or skeleton, whereas the plane is the spirit that envelops these bounded formations” (44). I have introduced this plane of thought as a method in my practice.
Although the two authors distinguish philosophers (who produce concepts), artists (who produce affects and percepts), and scientists (who produce functions), in my practice I question these boundaries, attempting to reveal how artistic thinking can generate not only concepts but also a kind of conceptual aesthetics.
This is animated through the system of conceptual characters I have developed. They are not psychological projections but conceptual operators that “inhabit the plane” (45) and materialise in paintings, installations and spatial assemblages of images. Each character opens a new field of problems, much like “a concept demands a problem and the crossroads of problems” (26), and ensures movement from one work to the next.
In the conference talk I will address three main questions: How, in artistic practice, do we distinguish a concept (a region of the plane) from a conceptual character (an inhabitant of the plane that traverses it)? How does this method allow us to transgress Deleuze’s separation between the concept produced by the philosopher and the affect produced by the artist, creating a zone of overlap between the two? How does the system of conceptual characters function as an internal “sieve” that enables the artist to resist the logic of market and project demands, preserving a dynamic of becoming rather than a static artistic signature.
Abstrakts
Mākslas praksē nereti pastāv spriedze starp nepieciešamību pēc rokraksta un vēlmi saglabāt radošu mainīgumu. Kā izvairīties no iestrēgšanas noteiktā stilā vai tēmā, nepazaudējot ideju nepārtrauktību? Sastopoties ar Žila Delēza un Fēliksa Gvatarī “Kas ir filozofija?”, atradu valodu savai līdzšinējai pieredzei: “jēdzieni ir arhipelāgs vai skelets, toties plāns ir šos norobežotos veidojumus apņemoša dvesma” (44). Šo domāšanas planomenu esmu ieviesusi kā savas prakses metodi.
Lai arī abi autori nošķir filozofus (rada jēdzienus), māksliniekus (rada afektus un perceptus) un zinātniekus (rada funkcijas), savā praksē es apšaubu šīs robežas, cenšoties atklāt, kā mākslinieciskā domāšana var radīt ne tikai jēdzienus, bet arī sava veida jēdzienu estētiku.
Tas tiek iedzīvināts ar manu izveidoto jēdzienisko personāžu sistēmas palīdzību. Tie nav psiholoģiskas projekcijas, bet jēdzieniski operatori, kas “apdzīvo plānu” (45) un materializējas gleznās, instalācijās, telpiskos tēlu kopumos. Katrs personāžs atver jaunu problēmu lauku, līdzīgi kā “jēdziens pieprasa problēmu un problēmu krustceles” (26), un nodrošina kustību no viena darba pie nākamā.
Konferences runā pievērsīšos trim galvenajiem jautājumiem:
1. Kā mākslinieciskajā praksē atšķirt jēdzienu (plāna reģionu) no jēdzieniskā personāža (plāna iemītnieka, kas to šķērso)?
2. Kā šī metode ļauj pārkāpt Delēza nošķīrumu starp filozofa radīto jēdzienu un mākslinieka radīto afektu, radot abu pārklāšanās zonu?
3. Kā jēdzienisko personāžu sistēma darbojas kā iekšējs “siets”, kas ļauj māksliniekam pretoties tirgus un projektu pieprasījuma loģikai, saglabājot tapšanas dinamiku, nevis statisku rokrakstu.
18:00 "A Thousand Conversations" at the French Institute of Latvia
(Invitation only)
***
09/10/2025
LU Mazā aula
08:30-09:00 Morning coffee
09:00-10:00
Between Metaphysics and History: Deleuze and the Invention of Film Modernity
Stanislas de Courville, University Paris 8, France
PLENARY LECTURE
(Chair: Dace Līdumniece)
Stanislas de Courville holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University Jean Moulin Lyon 3 (France). He is an associate member of the Aesthetics, Sciences and Technologies of Film laboratory (ESTCA, Paris 8) and of the Institute of Philosophical Research in Lyon (IRPhiL, Lyon 3), as well as being a member of the steering committee of the International Research Group ‘Living Among Screens’. He was a Temporary Research and Teaching Assistant at the universities of Paris 8 Vincennes–Saint-Denis and Aix-Marseille, where he currently lectures in the history, theory, and aesthetics of film. As a scholar of philosophy and film studies, his current research focuses on Deleuze’s film thinking, Soviet and post-Soviet cinema, and the survival of Russian symbolism of the Silver Age in 1920s Soviet cinema. He recently published his book The Screen of the Centuries. Deleuze, the Cinema and the War (Mimesis, 2024), and he has co-edited the collective work Cinema of the Body, Cinema of the Brain. Deleuze at the Edges of Spectatorship (Mimesis, 2024), together with Jacopo Bodini and Marie Rebecchi. He has also published articles on the work of filmmakers such as Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Elem Klimov, Alexander Sokurov, Andrey Zvyagintsev and Sergei Loznitsa in French and international peer-reviewed academic journals. He is currently organizing an international symposium with Jacopo Bodini, Cécile Sorin, and Dork Zabunyan, titled ‘Gilles Deleuze: Contemporary Uses of Film Thinking’, which is to be held in Paris this November.
Abstract:
In the foreword of The Movement-Image, Deleuze asserted that his intention was not to make a history of cinema but rather to create a “taxonomy, an attempt at the classification of images and signs”. Nonetheless, the reader of the two books on cinema by the French philosopher can easily notice the maintained presence of history in them, the “diptych” as we often call it mobilizing films and directors in a certain chronological order and establishing a profound rupture with a historical event at its center: World War II. It is the war which effectively seems to mark the transition between the “movement-image” and the “time-image” or, as Deleuze equally says, between “classical” and “modern cinema”. If most part of the readers accepted – and is still accepting – this chronological segmentation without questioning it, as it seemed a natural one considering that it obviously derived from André Bazin and his famous apology of the break in the history of cinema that Italian neorealism represented, a large number of scholars rejected it and its importance for Deleuze thinking of cinema, recalling the taxonomic intention of the author and his previous reject of history in general, as the philosopher always preferred chaotic becoming to it (and its alleged order, Hegel being ultimately never very far for Deleuze). Yet, history already played a fundamental part in the initial sketch of the diptych seven years before its writing, namely the (false) interview of the philosopher Godard's work given in 1976 to the Cahiers du cinéma. And history has a still largely ignored or denied capital role in the metaphysics (or “metacinema”) deployed in Movement-Image and Time-Image, as it is twisting it deeply, forcing it to reconfigure itself. Rather than naively accepting the presence of history in Deleuze’s thinking of cinema without questioning it (the position of the doxa, said Jean-Louis Leutrat), or refusing it by dogmatically claiming the taxonomic dimension (position of most scholars exegetes of Deleuze), we would like to show the way it is penetrating Deleuze’s metacinema from the start and transforming it, by returning to the theoretical and filmic sources of the philosopher who carried a strong historical dimension with them: especially Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville, Serge Daney and Hans-Jürgen Syberberg. We thus would like to show how Deleuze had a tremendous role in the invention of the so-called “cinematographic modernity”, which was before him a personal category of Serge Daney, as he gave philosophical legitimacy to it. A modernity which expresses a particular sadness and the desperate need to break with our traditional ways of thinking and feeling.
10:00-10.30 Coffee break
Section 1
Cinema and the Principles of Life / Cinematic Thinking
(Chair: Zane Ozola)
10:30-11:00 Valdur Mikita and the Return of the Real: In Search of Any-spaces-whatever in Estonian Forests
Sven Vabar, PhD(c), Institute of Art History and Visual Culture of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia
Sven Vabar is a doctoral student at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Institute of Art History and Visual Culture. He is in the process of completing his thesis on the deleuzian concept of any-space-whatever as seen through the lens of the experimental literature and arts scene in Tartu, Estonia, in the 2000s. Sven's interests include modernist and experimental literature, urban space, and Gilles Deleuze's philosophy. He has published two books of fiction in Estonian.
Abstract:
Estonian author Valdur Mikita (b. 1970) has had a peculiar career. He started out in 2000 as an experimental poet whose work was strongly influenced by his semiotic PhD studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia. His first books did not become popular among the wider public but received enthusiastic reviews by fellow scholars and experimental writers, who mostly interpreted his texts in a (post)structuralist framework. Then, a decade later, Mikita published a couple of essay books where he described his love of forests and most strange kinds of experiences and practices therein: synesthetic perceptions, 'inner speech', 'peripheral consciousness', etc. In 2013, something unexpected happened: his essay book 'The Linguistic Forest' became a sudden bestseller, and Mikita remains one of the most famous writers in Estonia to this day. Yet at the same time, academic scholars received 'The Linguistic Forest' with hesitation and even tended to ignore it: they did not quite know what to make of it. I argue that for Mikita, forest is any-space-whatever (l'espace quelconque). This term is introduced in Deleuze’s books “Cinema 1” (1983) and “Cinema 2” (1985) and represents physical space where an individual’s sensory-motor schema breaks down. Looking for and creating any-spaces-whatever even became somewhat popular in the experimental art and literature scene in Tartu in the 2000s and 2010s. This seems to be a sign of the 'material turn' in Estonian arts and humanities - a paradigm shift from (post)structuralism to the real, the material, the ontological, the object, or the so-called thing-in-itself.
Keywords: Valdur Mikita; any-space-whatever; body without organs; Gilles Deleuze’s books on cinema; material turn; Estonian avant-garde
11:00-11:30 How to Write a Leibnizian Detective Story?
Ainārs Kamoliņš, PhD student, Latvian Academy of Culture, Latvia
Ainārs Kamoliņš is a Latvian philosopher whose current interest focuses on the ontology of everyday things. He is completing a doctoral dissertation on electricity in Latvian intellectual thought at the Latvian Academy of Culture. Kamoliņš is the author of two books: Diaries:The Poetics of Spinoza (KiM? 2014) and The Philosophy of Furniture (Palette, 2021).
Abstract:
In his brief essay The Philosophy of Crime Novels, Gilles Deleuze traces two dominant philosophical models of detective fiction: the Cartesian, in which truth is deduced from intuition, and the Hobbesian, in which truth emerges from the accumulation of sensory facts. Each tradition has given rise to its own style of detective, committed to the discovery of truth as the central aim. Noir fiction, by contrast, displaces truth altogether; what takes its place, Deleuze argues, is a process he calls the “compensation of errors”.
In my talk, I will turn to a different possibility—one grounded in Deleuze’s interpretation of Leibniz. In his book The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin emerges as a prototype of the Leibnizian detective. Yet this also raises a broader question: Are there other alternatives, and could we imagine a third, distinct type of detective novel grounded in Leibniz’s philosophy? The inquiry I propose will therefore unfold through a series of related questions: What would a Leibnizian detective seek, if not truth in the Cartesian or Hobbesian sense? What epistemology and metaphysics would guide such an investigation? And finally, how might these principles reshape the very structure of the detective narrative itself?
11:30-12:00 “Straumes”Kaķa loģika Delēza filozofijas tvērumā
(The Logic of the Cat from "Flow" in the Perspective of Deleuze’s Philosophy)
Māra Rubene, Dr. habil. phil., Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Latvia
Māra Rubene, Dr. habil. phil., research interests focus on 20th century French philosophy, phenomenology, aesthetics. She has devoted particular attention to Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment. She has published on topics related to the present moment, urban ambience, aesthetics, and metaphysics.
Abstrakts
Latvijas animācijas estētikas stāstu ievērojami papildināja un nostiprināja Gints Zilbalodis un Matīss Kaža ar animācijas spēlfilmu “Straume” (2024). Žils Delēzs ļauj “Straumi” analīzēt plašākā filozofisko diskusiju kontekstā, jo īpaši ar savu koncepciju “domāšana ir heteroģenēze”, kas, starp citu, diskutē ar Huserla “pasīvās sintēzes”, kā arī Kanta “ģenēzes ideju”. Delēzs postulē, ka attīstība nefilozofijā ir izšķiroša filozofiskās domas evolūcijai. Analizējot kino, viņš vērš uzmanību uz to, ka animācija pieder pie kino, jo tā “balstās nevis uz Eiklīda, bet gan uz Dekarta ģeometriju”.
Šekspīra pazīstamā frāze “Ir sairusi laiku saite..” Delēza Kantam veltītajā esejā sasaucas ar “Straumes” apokaliptisko atmosfēru. Tādējādi “Straumes” kaķim tādas vēsturiskas Latvijas animācijas pērles kā, piemēram, “Kaķīša dzirnavas” (1932, 1994), “Ezītis miglā”, “Zaķīšu pirtiņa”, vai Arnolda Burova darbi, u.c., ir daļa no “laika kristāla”, t.i., piederīgi pagājušajai tagadnei daļai, neapzināti; uzsverot steidzamības un neatliekamības sajūtu, dinamisku, nepārtraukti līdzi gaismai mainīgu laika jēdzienu.
Gan Delēza “laika kristāla” koncepcija, gan Zilbaloža kaķa kustības loģika prasa sastapšanos ar haosu, izaicinot iedibināto, lai veidotu ceļu cauri haotiskajam. Šis process sākas ar kustības, gaismas un ātruma apgūšanu— vai, kā apraksta Delēzs, sapludinātiem ūdeņiem, zemi, gaismu un gaisu — kas tiek piedzīvoti, “sajusti pirms katras to attēlošanas vai atpazīšanas”.
“Straume” izmantotās animācijas tehnikas atdzīvina uz ekrāna - ūdens, zemes, gaismas un gaisa mijiedarbību. Šeit kaķa loģika ir mākslinieciski atveidota, īpaši ar ūdens dinamikas (Mārtiņš Upītis, Konstantīns Višņevskis), kā arī apkārtējo vides skaņu un mūzikas bagātīgās klātesamības palīdzību (Rihards Zaļupe, Gints Zilbalodis). Filmā redzamā gaisma, tostarp, Zilbaloža "pieradināto" kaķa acu mirdzums, atbilst Delēza "pretošanās estētikai". Šīs filozofiskās pieejas, kas liek krustoties dzīvei, mākslai, tiklab tehnikai un filozofijai, avoti ir pamatā Delēza domas joprojām rosinošajai diskusijai; taču aplūkota šādā magnētiskā laukā animācijas filma “Straume” ļauj mums pavērt ceļus uz pasaulei “pazaudēto ticību”, tiklab arī uztaustīt radošas sadarbības līnijas tās meklējumos.
Abstract:
The story of Latvian animation aesthetics was significantly supplemented and strengthened in
2024 by Gints Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža with the animated feature film “Flow”. In his Cinema books Gilles Deleuze gives us an example of how to proceed with analyses of cinematographic thinking. Thus “Flow” has to be analyzed in the broader context of philosophical discussions: especially with his concept “thinking is heterogenesis”, which, by the way, addresses Husserl’s “passive synthesis” as well as Kant’s “idea of genesis”. Deleuze postulates that development in non-philosophy is crucial for the evolution of philosophical thought. Seeing creative thought in cinema, he draws attention to the fact that animation belongs to cinema, because it “is based not on Euclidean, but on Cartesian geometry”. Shakespeare’s well-known phrase “The bond of time has been broken..” in Deleuze’s essay dedicated to Kant resonates with the apocalyptic atmosphere of “Flow”. Thus, for the cat in “Flow”, such historical Latvian animation gems as “Cat's Mill” (1932), or (1994), “Hedgehog in the Mist”, “Hare Bath”, or the works of Arnold Burovs, etc., are part of the “time crystal”, i.e.belonging to the past part of the present, unconsciously; emphasizing the sense of urgency, a dynamic, constantly changing concept of time and light. Both Deleuze's concept of the “time crystal” and the logic of the movement of the cat (Gints Zilbalodis) require an encounter with chaos, challenging the established in order to create a path Mihailova, Mihaela. Latvian Animation: Landscapes of Resistance. Animated Landscapes.1 History, Form, and Function. Ed. by Chris Pallant, New York, London.. Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 125-142. through the chaotic. This process begins with the mastery of movement, light and speed—or, as Deleuze describes it, the merged waters, earth, light and air—which are experienced, “felt before each representation or recognition of them”.
The animation techniques used in “Flow” bring to life on screen the interplay of water, earth, light and air. Here, the logic of the cat is artistically rendered, especially with the help of water dynamics (Mārtiņš Upītis, Konstantīns Višņevskis), as well as the rich presence of environmental sounds and music (Rihards Zaļupe, Gints Zilbalodis). The light seen in the film, including the glow of Zilbaložs’s “tamed” cat’s eyes, corresponds to Deleuze’s “aesthetics of resistance”. This philosophical approach, which forces life, art, and even technology and philosophy to intersect, is the source of Deleuze’s thought that still inspires ongoing discussion; but viewed in this magnetic field, the animated film “Flow” also allows us to open paths to lost belief in the “world”, as well as to encourage and explore lines of possible creative collaboration.
12:00-12:30 Milda's Room: A Space for Crying, Creating, and Darkness. Notes from the making of a documentary film about Milda Palēviča.
Kristīne Želve, Dr.artium student, Latvian Academy of Culture, Latvia
Kristīne Želve, MA, director and writer. She studied film directing and cultural management at the Latvian Academy of Culture. Director of the films Fedja (2012), Mērijas ceļojums (2018), Emīlija, Latvijas prese karaliene (2021). Author of the historical novel Grosvaldi and several collections of short stories. She curates exhibitions and cultural events. She is currently enrolled in the Professional Doctorate programme at the Latvian Academy of Culture, where she is making a film and developing a theoretical research project on the philosopher Milda Palēviča (1889–1972).
Abstract:
The chain of relations is as follows: Milda Palēviča (1889–1972), the first woman in Latvia to be awarded a doctorate in philosophy and a holder of a degree from the Sorbonne, considered herself a committed adherent of Henri Bergson’s ideas one of her (many) unrealised dreams was to establish a Bergson study in Riga while Gilles Deleuze based several concepts of film theory on Bergson’s philosophy.
As a practising film director, I gladly subscribe to Deleuze’s view that a film — even a film about a philosopher! - does not need to serve as an illustration of philosophical concepts if it has the capacity to provoke the effervescence of new ideas and to reflect not the real but the subjective flow of time, in which past and present can coexist. But how, within 90 minutes of screen time, to represent Palēviča the scholar, a women’s rights activist, a single mother of three, a “witness of an era” and the nearly century-long span of “Milda’s time”?
“I do only what my sense of beauty and my mind allow me. […] It is a reality that sometimes (often at night) reaches the degree of complete conviction. Intuition gives me such conviction that I do not doubt anything, yet a rational explanation for it is lacking,” Palēviča notes in her diary entries.
In my practice-based report I will, if not provide a rational explanation, then share my experiences and challenges in creating the documentary hybrid film about Milda Palēviča, Milda’s Room, in which Milda’s room becomes the central visual image and organiser of content a conditioned physical space (a neutral empty studio) in which the film’s action takes place. I should add immediately that this is an (externally) very still mode of action that encompasses Milda’s subjective sensations, self-analysis, emotions, affects, and self-questioning, and that also leaves room for the darkness of history, as well as for the director’s attempts to form new relations between staged enactments of Palēviča’s diary entries, film-archive images and the time captured in them, and the place and time in which we find ourselves now.
Abstrakts
Mildas istaba – telpa raudāšanai, radīšanai un tumsai. Piezīmes no dokumentārās filmas par Mildu Palēviču tapšanas. Praksē balstīts ziņojums.
Attiecību ķēdīte ir šāda: pirmā promovētā filozofijas doktore Latvijā ar Sorbonnas universitātes grādu Milda Palēviča (1889–1972) sevi uzskatīja par pārliecinātu Anrī Bergsona ideju adepti – viens no viņas (daudzajiem) nerealizētajiem sapņiem bija Rīgā nodibināt Bergsona studiju, savukārt Žils Delēzs vairākus kino teorijas konceptus balstīja Bergsona filozofijā. Kā praktizējoša kinorežisore labprāt pieslejos Delēza uzskatam, ka filmai – pat filmai par filozofi! – nav nepieciešamības būt filozofisku konceptu ilustrācijai, ja tai piemīt spējas rosināt jaunu ideju uzvirmošanu un atspoguļot nevis reālu, bet subjektīvu laika plūdumu, kurā vienlaikus var sadzīvot pagātne un tagadne. Bet kā 90 minūšu ekrāna laikā reprezentēt Palēvičas – zinātnieces, sieviešu tiesību aktīvistes, triju bērnu solo mātes, “laikmeta liecinieces” tēlu un teju gadsimtu ilgušo “Mildas laiku”? “Es daru tikai to, ko mana skaistuma izjūta un prāts man ļauj./…/ Tā ir realitāte, kas brīžiem (bieži naktīs) sasniedz pilnīgas pārliecības pakāpi. Intuīcija man dod tādu pārliecību, ka es ne par ko nešaubos, bet racionāla izskaidrojuma tam pietrūkst,” dienasgrāmatu ierakstos atzīst Palēviča. Es savā praksē balstītajā ziņojumā ja ne racionāli izskaidrošu, tad dalīšos ar pieredzi un izaicinājumiem, veidojot dokumentāro hibrīdfilmu par Mildu Palēviču “Mildas istaba”, kurā par centrālo vizuālo tēlu un satura organizētāju kļūst Mildas istaba – nosacīta fiziskā telpa (neitrāla tukša studija), kurā risinās filmas darbība. Uzreiz piebildīšu, ka tā ir (ārēji) ļoti mazkustīga darbība, kas sevī ietver Mildas subjektīvās sajūtas, pašanalīzi, emocijas, afektus, sevis iztaujāšanu un atstāj vietu arī vēstures tumsai, kā arī režisores mēģinājumiem veidot jaunas attiecības starp Palēvičas dienasgrāmatu inscenējumiem, kino arhīva attēlu un tajā fiksēto laiku, un vietu un laiku, kurā esam šobrīd.
12:30-13:30 LUNCH
13:30-14:30
Gilles Deleuze and Organism-Oriented Ontology
Audronė Žukauskaitė, Lithuanian Culture Research Institute
PLENARY LECTURE
(Chair: Andrejs Balodis)
Audronė Žukauskaitė is a Professor at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, and a Chief Researcher at the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute. Her recent publications include the monographs Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s Philosophy: The Logic of Multiplicity (in Lithuanian, 2011) and From Biopolitics to Biophilosophy (in Lithuanian, 2016). She also co- edited (with S. E. Wilmer) Interrogating Antigone in Postmodern Philosophy and Criticism (Oxford UP, 2010); Deleuze and Beckett (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Resisting Biopolitics: Philosophical, Political and Performative Strategies (Routledge, 2016; 2018), and Life in the Posthuman Condition: Critical Responses to the Anthropocene (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). Her latest monograph, Organism-Oriented Ontology, was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2023.
Abstract:
In my talk, I aim to discuss my notion of organism-oriented ontology and highlight some original Deleuzian ideas that are seen as precursors to this ontology. Organism-oriented ontology prioritises three main ideas: processuality, multiplicity, and potentiality (the potential for qualitative change). The notion of processuality, emerging from the philosophies of Simondon, Ruyer, and Whitehead, is incorporated into Deleuze and Guattari’s ontology of becoming. In contrast to ontologies based on identity and substance, the ontology of becoming examines organisms as they develop, change, and evolve. Deleuze and Guattari also managed to reconceptualise the notion of the organism in terms of multiplicity and assemblage. Redefined in this way, the organism opens many productive ways to examine such phenomena as symbiosis or the holobiont, and helps to contextualise the philosophical notion of the organism within recent developments in biology. The Deleuzian ontology of multiplicity and becoming also implies the notion of potentiality, which helps to explain the contingency in the development of living beings. In this respect, Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas mark a radical shift in modern philosophy and also open a way for recent developments in contemporary philosophy.
Section 2
Thought of Desire: Life, Vitality, Immanence
(Chair: Ineta Kivle)
14:30-15:00 Deleuze and Water Ethics
Artis Svece, PhD, Department of Philosophy and Ethics, University of Latvia
Associate Professor in Social Philosophy at the University of Latvia, his main research interest lies in the environmental humanities and human-animal studies. At the moment, he is a researcher at the project “Water Cultures: A Transformative Approach for Sustainable Human-Water Relationships” at the University of Latvia, funded by the Latvian Council of Science.
Abstract:
Traditional normative ethics struggles to account for the value dimensions of human relationships with the environment, which encompasses both individual living beings and more complex natural phenomena, such as rivers. This presentation will examine affective encounters with water as dynamic multiplicities, highlighting how a Deleuzian approach can contribute to developing value-based models of human–nonhuman coexistence.
15:00-15:30 Flows of Materiality: Considering the Role of Process Ontology in Environmental Philosophy
Anne Sauka, PhD, Department of Philosophy and Ethics, University of Latvia
Anne Sauka is an Associate Professor at the University of Latvia, Department of Philosophy and Ethics. Sauka has authored several articles in environmental philosophy, such as “Experiencing Elemental Embodiment: (Re) visiting Latvian Folklore on Life and Nature” (2024). In her contributions, Sauka focuses on the human-nature relationship in the context of an embodied and environed processual self, by combining phenomenological approaches with an ontogenealogical approach of (re) visiting mythologies and ontologies that co-constitute lived materialities today. Her latest publications can be found here: https://www.resea rchgate.net/profile/Anne-auka/publications Contact: anne.sauka@lu.lv.
Abstract:
Deleuze’s processual approach has inspired new materialist and posthumanist thought across various academic disciplines, including in the sphere of environmental thinking. Nevertheless, in the discussion of the ways in which a processual approach could change the way in which we think and live the environment, one question remains unanswered. Namely, it is the question of the applicability of a process approach to the experiential dimension. Can we experience the world as a process, and to what extent is it significant for changing human-environment relationships? In essence, it is also the question of whether a synthesis of the Deleuzian outlook and a first-person perspective or phenomenology is possible. Thus, by bringing together Deleuze’s processual approach with ecophenomenological considerations, I consider here the ethical, experiential, and lived dimension of process ontologies.
15:30-16:00 The Affective Politics of Space in Practices of Enclosure and Deterioration / Afektivitātes lauks telpiskajā politikā: iežogošana un drupu destrukcija
Aurēlija Džordana Auzere, MPhil student, Department of Philosophy and Ethics, University of Latvia
Aurēlija Džordana Auzere is studying philosophy at the University of Latvia, works for the philosophy journal Tvērums, and is a researcher at the Pauls Stradiņš Medicine History Museum. Her academic interests are currently focused on 20th-century philosophy: existential phenomenology and environmental philosophy. She is interested in the ethics of passion, the relationship between affectivity and embodiment, and the lived philosophy.
Abstract:
Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of affect, desire, deterritorialization and reterritorialization are applicable to the deconstruction of various environmental and spatial practices. Assuming the definition that an affect is an autonomous force that is not localized or fixed within an individual and their body but is fluid and variable, I offer a perspective on how, within environmental philosophy, the materiality and organization of space can be analysed — how space produces affects and how the extension of power in space controls human behaviour.
By introducing Deleuze’s notions of desire, affectivity, reterritorialization and deterritorialization, nomadology, and by foregrounding Nigel Thrift’s and Alejandro Zaera-Polo’s Deleuzian interpretations in the context of environmental biopolitics and ethics, the aim is to evaluate the networks of meanings produced by construction in public space and the production of desires as expressions of the affective politics of space.
The production of affectivity, its saturation and intensity in the public, shared space is not merely an aesthetic but also a biopolitical problem. Space is animated and destroyed by the force of passions, much like the Body without Organs is pervaded by affects and lies outside the rigidity of organization. Spaces are characterized by the over-individuality of affects, involving many bodies, with affect occurring both between and within bodies. One mechanism for introducing the structuring of striated space is the practice of enclosure: fences, walls, barriers as veils of space, visual screens, boundary points and instruments of control. Spatial politics can either affirm these or tightly constrain them. The same applies to abandoned territories and ruinous, nostalgia-evoking buildings, which reveal themselves as fields of new potentialities and as evidence of time’s corrosive influence; this relates to an environmental saturation of discomfort that various control mechanisms seemingly seek to avoid, while intensifying other desires — for order, for organization.
Abstrakts
Žila Delēza afektu, vēlmes, deteritorializācijas un reteritorializācijas jēdzieni ir pielietojami dažādu vides un telpisko prakšu dekonstrukcijā. Pieņemot definīciju, ka afekts ir autonoms spēks, kas nav lokalizēts un fiksēts indivīdā un viņa ķermenī, bet ir plūstošs un mainīgs, piedāvāju skatījumu uz to, kā vides filosofijas ietvaros ir iespējama telpas materialitātes un organizācijas analīze – kā telpa producē afektus un kā varas ekstensija telpā kontrolē cilvēka uzvedību? Ieviešot Delēza vēlmes, afektivitātes, reteritorializācijas un deteritorializācijas, nomadoloģijas jēdzienus un aktualizējot Delēzā balstītajās Naidžela Trifta (Nigel Thrift) un Alehandro Zaera-Polo (Alejandro Zaera-Polo) interpretācijas vides biopolitikas un ētikas kontekstā, mērķis ir izvērtēt būvniecības nozīmju tīklojumus publiskajā telpā un vēlmju producēšanu kā telpas afektīvās politikas izpausmes. Afektivitātes producēšana, tās piesātinājums un intensitāte publiskajā, kopīgajā telpā ir ne tikai estētiska, bet arī biopolitiska problēma. Telpa tiek iedzīvināta un destruēta ar kaislību spēku, līdzīgi kā ķermenis bez orgāniem ir afektu caurstrāvots un ārpus organizācijas rigiditātes. Telpu raksturo afektu pārindividualitāte, kurā ir iesaistīti daudzi ķermeņi un kur afekts ir gan starp, gan iekš ķermeņiem. Viens no rievotās telpas (striate space) struktūrētības ieviešanas mehānismiem ir iežogošanas prakses; žogi, sienas, barjeras kā telpas aizklājēji, vizualitātes aizsegi, robežpunkti, kontroles rīki. Telpiskā politika to var vai nu afirmēt, vai stingri iegrožot. Līdzīgi var runāt arī par pamestām teritorijām, nostaļģiju izraisošām ēku drupām, kas atklājas kā jaunu potencialitāšu lauks un apliecinājums par laika izārdošās ietekmes klātbūtni; tas attiecas uz neērtuma piesātinājumu vidē, no kā ar dažādiem kontroles mehānismiem šķietami jāizvairās, citas vēlmes – sakārtotību, organizāciju – intensificējot.
16:00-16:30 Tulkošana kā jēdzienu radīšana (referāts-performance) / Translation as Concept-Creation (lecture-performance)
Ivars Šteinbergs, PhD, Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia
Ivars Šteinbergs is a literary scholar and poet who was awarded a doctoral degree in 2023. His research interests include the theory of poetry translation and the history of translation in Latvia, the poetics of poetry, and contemporary poetry in Latvia and worldwide illuminated by interdisciplinary cultural theory. He was a Fulbright Scholar (2017–2018) and holds an MA in Comparative Literature. He is an Associate Professor at the Latvian Academy of Culture, a researcher at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia, editor of the literary journal Strāva, and the author of several books of poetry. A special passion of his is the intersection of research and creative writing.
Abstract:
In my presentation I wish to draw parallels between Gilles Deleuze’s critique of representation which, among other things, manifests in the idea that philosophy creates concepts (rather than discovers them) and the practice of translation. At the same time I am interested in effective approaches to research, creative work and attempts at thinking. Observing the vectors along which twentieth-century Continental philosophy has developed (the critique of the Cartesian subject evolving into a posthuman critique of anthropocentrism, the critique of binary structures evolving into feminist critiques of gender categories, etc.), my presentation will seek vectors within a cluster of questions addressing transformations in the critique of mimetic aesthetics, in which the embodied, the dynamic, the unfinished and the open replace static abstractions. Specifically the lecture-performance event is conceived as a post-critical intervention into idealistic conceptions of literary translation.
In the current geopolitical circumstances it seems important not to succumb to a cult of negativity that underlies every micro-aggression or micro-fascism. The Nietzschean amor fati, the cultivation of life-affirming joy which was important also to Gilles Deleuze, who saw it in the works of F. Nietzsche, B. Spinoza and other kindred thinkers serve both as a means of survival and as a critique of oppressive power. Therefore, perhaps now it is important in translation and in the analysis of translations to seek not yet another hidden ideology or hierarchy, but renewal and surprises.
Although the problem of untranslatability is traditionally associated with suffering, frustration, anger and incapacity, in my lecture-performance I hope to affirmatively demonstrate the pleasure of untranslatability. It manifests as forced creation, which, in the rational that is, representation-centered understanding of translation theory, is forbidden. By reading and translating the poetry and prose of J. Ostaševska, D. Joyce and other authors whose works resist direct translation, I will show the inevitability of neologism formation. This inevitability of creativity characteristic of translation in a way demonstrates (or proves?) what Deleuze has frequently argued about art: the impossibility of any “absolute authority.”
Abstrakts
Savā prezentācijā vēlos vilkt paralēles starp Žila Delēza veikto reprezentācijas kritiku, kas cita starpā izpaudās idejā, ka filozofija konceptus rada (ne piemeklē), un tulkošanas praksi. Vienlaikus mani interesē afektīvas pieejas pētniecībai, radošajam darbam un domāšanas mēģinājumiem. Vērojot, kādos vektoros attīstījusies 20. gadsimta kontinentālā filozofija (kartēziskā subjekta kritikai pāraugot posthumānā antropocentrisma kritikā, bināru struktūru kritikai – feministiskā dzimumkategoriju kritikā u.tml.), mana prezentācija meklēs vektorus jautājumu lokā, kas pievēršas mimētiskās estētikas kritikas transformācijām, kurās statisku abstrakciju vietā nāk iemiesotais, dinamiskais, nepabeigtais un atvērtais. Konkrēti – referāta-performances notikums iecerēts kā post-kritiska intervence ideālistiskos priekšstatos par literāro tulkošanu. Šībrīža ģeopolitiskajos apstākļos šķiet svarīgi neļauties negativitātes kultam, kas atrodas saknē ikvienai mikro-agresijai jeb mikrofašismam. Nīčiskais amor fati, dzīvi apliecinošā prieka kultivēšana, kas bijusi svarīga arī Žilam Delēzam un kuru filozofs saskatīja F. Nīčes, B. Spinozas un citu radniecīgu domātāju darbos, noder gan kā izdzīvošanas līdzeklis, gan – apspiedošas varas kritika. Tāpēc, iespējams, šobrīd būtiski tulkošanā un tulkošanas/tulkojumu analīzē meklēt nevis kārtējās slēptas ideoloģijas un hierarhijas, bet – atjaunošanos un pārsteigumus. Lai arī netulkojamības problēma tradicionāli saistās ar ciešanām, frustrāciju, dusmām un nespēju, savā priekšlasījumā-performancē es ceru afirmatīvi demonstrēt netulkojamības baudu. Tā izpaužas piespiedu jaunradē, kura racionālajā – tas ir, reprezentācijas idejās balstītajā – tulkošanas teorijas izpratnē ir aizliegta. Lasot un tulkojot J. Ostaševska, D. Džoisa un citu autoru dzejas un prozas darbus, kas pretojas tiešam tulkojumam, tiks parādīta jaunvārdu rašanās neizbēgamība. Šī tulkošanai raksturīgā radošuma neizbēgamība savā veidā uzrāda (pierāda?) to, par ko mākslas sakarā daudzviet runājis Delēzs, proti, jebkādas “galējās autoritātes” neiespējamību
16:30-17:30 Closing section with the round table
“Domāt ir notikt: tulkojam Delēzu” / “Thinking is an Event: Translating Deleuze”
Diskusiju vada Andrejs Balodis, piedalās Ivars Šteinbergs, Māra Rubene, Dace Līdumniece.
CONCLUSION
***
10/10/2025
Rhizomatic Zoom sessions
ONLINE ONLY
Section 1
Becoming, Sense, and the Aesthetics of Thought
(Chair:Anne Sauka)
10:00 – 10:30 Deleuze’s Becoming-Creative as Epistemic Repair
Justina Šumilova, PhD(c), Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, Lithuania
PhD candidate at Lithuanian culture research institute. She is writing her dissertation on absence in Maurice Blanchot's philosophy. She is interested in disability studies, animal studies and philosophy of death.
Abstract:
Deleuze and Guattari viewed schizophrenia as a process of liberation which is able to break the boundaries of production of desires. However, they understood clinical schizophrenia as a tragedy of reterritorialization and suffering. Schizophrenics face epistemic and existential injustice. Epistemic injustice arises from unequal relations when schizophrenics are poorly represented or not represented at all in the discourse. While existential injustice occurs when schizophrenics don’t have access or are prevented from participating in the socialization processes and interactions that support their development, change or recognition. Schizophrenic condition calls for a reconsideration. This workshop is divided into two parts. Firstly, the workshop will shortly explain what is becoming-creative and how it can produce epistemic repair to schizophrenics. Deleuze's understanding of creativity can be applied to reformulate the understanding of clinical schizophrenia by also enriching the perspective with Bortolotti's current philosophy on delusions. The research claims that schizophrenic paranoia, delusions and voices can be understood as "becoming-creative". Creativity of schizophrenia is uncontrollable, nomadic and occurs when the creator is not aiming to create anything at all intentionally. Such creativity occurs as an interrupting event that surprises the "creator" herself. Also, epistemic repair seeks to hear the stories of various schizophrenics. Another key feature is imagination which helps to see oneself in the situation of the Other who experiences epistemic injustice. The second part of the workshop will consist of an exercise which will help the participants to imagine that they are in the position of the clinical schizophrenic to better understand their daily struggles. Adaption of creativity to clinical schizophrenics not only helps to understand their condition better, but also enriches the society by encouraging a form of responsibility because society becomes responsive towards oppressed others who can become effective givers of knowledge to restore their credibility as knowers and agents.
10:30 – 11:00 On the Givenness and Genesis of Sense: Deleuze on Husserl in Logic of Sense
Darren Anthony Cabildo, MPhil (IRs), Philippines
An independent researcher, not affiliated with any school/university. As for academic qualifications, I obtained a master's degree in Philosophy at Ateneo de Manila University (Philippines) in 2025. For my MA thesis, I wrote on Derrida and Deleuze's treatment of Husserl's concept of sense in their writings from the Sixties.
Abstract:
In Logic of Sense (1969), Gilles Deleuze develops his concept of sense and the event through the works of Lewis Carroll and the Stoics. Deleuze describes the entanglement of sense and paradox when he writes that sense is a “nonexisting entity.” Although sense is related to both language and things, it is neither linguistic nor material. Alongside these sources, Deleuze also engages with phenomenology – specifically Edmund Husserl’s Ideas I and Jean-Paul Sartre’s Transcendence of the Ego – to rethink the notions of sense, the transcendental field, and the Other. What strategic function does this engagement with phenomenology contribute to Deleuze’s argument? This paper addresses this question by considering how Deleuze thinks with and through Husserl. Focusing on the “Fourteenth” and “Fifteenth Series,” I analyze Deleuze’s condensed reading of Husserl’s notion of the givenness or donation of sense (Sinngebung) and the irreal character of the noema found in Ideas I. I argue that Husserlian phenomenology provides an analogue for theorizing the “nonexisting” character of sense, i.e., its irreality. Deleuze distinguishes his project by emphasizing the impersonal character of a “field” that underlies the creative and genetic impulse of sense. I explore how Deleuze moves from the givenness of sense (Sinngebung), to a critique of the “personality” of the phenomenological-transcendental subject, leading to the impersonality of the transcendental field. I conclude by affirming the necessity of becoming in Deleuze’s thought and consider the place of phenomenology within this enterprise.
Keywords: Genesis, Phenomenology, Sense (sens), Transcendental Field
11:00 – 11:30 Painting, Thought and Diagram
Jean-Claude Léveque, PhD, Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin, Italy
Researcher at the CSIC-CCHS (Instituto de Filosofía) in Madrid until 2013, currently associate Professor in the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin. He has published numerous essays on contemporary Spanish philosophy and, in particular, on the work of Ortega y Gasset (among them, Ortega interpreter of Kant, I and II, Milan, 2002 and 2005 and Forms of historical reason. Ortega y Gasset's philosophy as European philosophy. Turin 2008) and Alain Badiou, Etienne Balibar and Jacques Rancière. Currently he deals with the relationship between Aesthetics and Politics in contemporary French philosophy, the philosophy of law of G. Teubner and social ontology. He was co-editor (with M.Cipolloni and F.Moiso) of the volume Ortega y Gasset, thinker and narrator of Europe (Milan, 2001) and with L. Bagetto of the volume Image and writing (Rome, 2009). He collaborates assiduously with the Kaiak magazine and is editor of the Escritura e imagen magazine (Madrid), a member of Nordic Pragmatism Network.
Abstract:
In line with the proposition of phenomenology, Deleuze affirms that sensation is being-in-the-world, since "at the same time I become sensation and something happens through sensation, one through the other, one in the other" (2005: 41-42). The body is both the giver and the receiver, that is, the object and subject indistinctly. Indeed, sensation, along with appealing to the nervous system and instinct, also appeals to the time of occurrence. Although for both positions, sensation is the experience of an undifferentiated, instantaneous, and punctual shock, Deleuze distances himself from phenomenology, and particularly from Maurice Merleau-Ponty , especially in the way in which this experience is rooted. If for the former, this experience is a pure irruption of the open without a subject, for the latter, sensation is the experience of a state of self. Now, Bacon's work can be read as the confirmation and achievement that in painting, what is painted is sensation. That is, the work is capable of opening an indistinct zone of experience, where object and subject are lost, and which furthermore deregulates the senses with such intensity that it transgresses them. Bacon is the one who conquers this experience in painting, thus proposing a way out that transcends both figuration and abstraction; that is, he finds a way to produce a work that acts directly on the "nervous system," unlike figurative and abstract painting, which are directed at the intellect.
11:30 – 12:00 Outside as the Interior of Cinema: An Investigation on the Blanchotian Ground in Deleuze’s Time-Image
Tse Kin Pong Rony, MA (IRs), Hong Kong
Tse Kin Pong Rony is an independent researcher with research interest revolving around continental philosophy and theology, Deleuzian philosophy, philosophy of film and interdisciplinary art practice. He received his MA in Creative Media from the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.
Abstract:
Deleuze produced a range of new cinematic cineosis in his two volumes of Cinema but his intent has always oriented towards provoking new conceptual thoughts. These cineosis are not merely cinematic terms but therein lies Deleuze’s philosophical trajectory of his ontological thought. Deleuze has overtly attributed to the thought Henri Bergson as the foundation of the image of thought especially movement-image but the transition from movement-image to time-image revealed that such transition also marked a shift in cinematic ontology from Bergson to another significant interlocutor, Maurice Blanchot. This paper intends to investigate on the seemingly hidden root of Blanchot’s thought of Outside in relation to the dramatic change of ontological foundation in time-image and demonstrate how different cineosis of time-image closely corresponded to Blanchot’s conception of Outside. Blanchot’s thought of Outside denoted a peculiar state of time contrary to the chronological temporality in which the presence of time is its absent without foundation which autonomously returns and haunts the present. He categorized three traits of such “time’s absence” as time’s incessant, time’s ungraspability and time’s becoming in difference. By unpacking these three traits of Outside, this paper tends to reveal how Deleuze has largely appropriated Blanchot’ thought of Outside to construct his conception of time-image. What Deleuze portrayed the essence of time-image as a shock to thought is worth examining how the shock is informed by Blanchot’s Outside and further affected Deleuze’s constitution of different cienosis in time-image. Such investigation aims at unveiling the Blanchotian trace in Deleuze’s time-image to offer alternative interpretations on the presumption of the philosophical ground in Cinema.
12:00 - 12.30 Deleuze, Bergson, and the Perfidy of False Problems
Sandro Christopher Herr, PhD, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany.
Postdoctoral research fellow at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal. In 2024 he completed his dissertation in a cotutelle-procedure at Charles University Prague. His thesis is on the question of how philosophical problematicity works in principle from a phenomenological perspective along the attempts of Eugen Fink and Gilles Deleuze. Currently, he’s working in a DFGfunded project at the Eugen-Fink-Zentrum Wuppertal that aims at discovering the potential of Fink’s and Patočka’s thought for contemporary discussions in New Materialism and Realism. Herr’s major research interests are German Idealism, Phenomenology and French Philosophy. Forthcoming publications are e.g. Elemente einer ökologischen Verflechtung des Organischen mit Hans Rainer Sepp und Gregory Bateson (Königshausen & Neumann, 2025). E-mail: sherr @uni-wuppertal.de
Abstract:
Foucault once remarked quite aptly of Deleuze’s engagement with the history of philosophy that he repeates it like in a theater—complete, and yet not the same.1 This peculiarity is the expression of a special method of Deleuze’s, namely dramatization. Through dramatization, the problem-idea of a thinker is unfolded in a new light, as if it were for the first time.2In this way, Deleuze achieves a reconciliation of two approaches: the history of philosophy is neither a dry regurgitation of the documented opinions of long-dead figures, nor a mere repository of material which we deem interesting—or dismiss—thereby only considering the questions of our own present. Dramatization allows one to be affected by the intellectual passion of a stranger and to make their problem into one’s own. Thus, it is not a neutral representation but is itself concerned with the true substantive core of a problem.
It is precisely here, however, that Deleuze learned something decisive from Bergson: there are also false problems. Bergson’s great merit lies in locating falsity as immanent to the problems themselves, rather than by means of some externally imposed standard.3 Two basic types of falsity can be distinguished: pseudo-problems and badly stated problems, both of which are closely interwoven. In my talk, I will present a series of false problems by way of Bergson’s key texts. With Deleuze’s help, these will then be developed into a logic of the false problem which I examine in my research. It can be shown that false problems may expand ever further— even into a philosophical system—like a fox’s den inhabited by a false being, a hare, a badger, etc., which does not know the reason for its wandering. Diagrams and PowerPoint slides will assist in visualizing this basic structure of false problem.
1 Vgl. Michel Foucault, „Theatrum philosophicum“, in: ders., Gilles Deleuze, Der Faden ist ge rissen, übers. v. Ulrich Raulff und Walter Seitter. Berlin 1977, p. 21 ff.
2 Vgl. Gilles Deleuze: Differenz und Wiederholung, Fink, München 1992, S. 277 und S. 334.
3 Vgl. Gilles Deleuze: Henri Bergson, Stuttgart, Junius 1992, 28f.
12:30 – 13:00 LUNCH
Section 2
Intensity, Experience, and the Transcendental
(Chair: Zane Ozola)
13:00 – 13:30
The Telluric Image: Experiencing the Earth Through the Landscape
Felipe Andrés Matti, PhD(c), Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina
Felipe Andrés Matti holds a degree in Philosophy from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, where he is also assistant professor of Philosophy as well as Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art. He is also professor of Art History II at the Escuela Nacional de Museología (ENAM) and a doctoral fellow at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). He has published several articles on philosophy, aesthetics, and related disciplines in specialized journals.
Abstract:
This paper proposes a conceptualization of the aesthetic experience of Earth through Deleuze’s concept of the telluric image. Rather than understanding landscape as an object or a projection of subjectivity, I argue that landscape is the eventful encounter with the Earth as a corporeal, sonorous rhythm that exceeds all structures. I contend that landscape constitutes a privileged mode of accessing the Earth beyond the semiotic, political, and spatial codifications of territory. While territory organizes space through distances, places, and movements that conform subjectivity to sociopolitical norms, landscape emerges as an affective rupture. This is what the telluric image expresses, for it is the deterritorialized experience of Earth that disorients and dissolves such structures. Furthermore, I suggest that the suppression of access to landscape—via urban planning, land commodification, or bodily displacement—functions as a form of political control over bodies, perceptions, and futures. Ultimately, I argue that the aesthetic experience of landscape is key to the emergence of new forms of subjectivity, or trajectivity, and with them, new peoples and possibilities. The landscape is not merely scenery—it is the virtual, incorporeal plane from which difference and becoming surge against the repetition and rigidity of structured space.
13:30 – 14:00 Deleuze and the Question of Intensity: Experience, Individuation, Evolution
David Bastidas-Bolaños, PhD(c), Université Bordeaux-Montaigne, France
David Bastidas-Bolaños is a philosopher from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá) and a former student of the Erasmus Mundus+ Europhilosophie Master's program, with studies in Prague, Barcelona, and Toulouse. He is currently in his third year of PhD in Philosophy at Université Bordeaux-Montaigne in France. His dissertation focuses on the problem of intensity in Gilles Deleuze’s first period (1953–1969). His main research interests include contemporary French philosophy (Deleuze, Foucault), modern philosophy (Spinoza, Kant), aesthetics, political ecology, and philosophy of biology.
Abstract:
The concept of intensity is one of the most significant themes in both Deleuze’s and Deleuze-Guattari’s thought, yet its exact meaning seems elusive. Is intensity simply a particularly strong sensation, a mere quality of experience, or more generally the mark of every becoming? Or does this notion also have a strong ontological scope, ultimately naming the various gradations of a univocal being? Seeking to understand the centrality of intensity within Deleuze's Différence and Repetition, in our presentation we propose to highlight the three fundamental senses in which Deleuze uses this notion. This analysis will not only highlight the importance of three of Deleuze's predecessors (Kant, Simondon, Darwin), but above all it will outline the general lines of three different theories: a theory of experience, a theory of individuation, and a theory of evolution. Operating along these three axes, we believe that intensity allows us to discover an unexplored dimension of Deleuze's thought.
14:00 – 14:30 Life Beyond Consciousness: Revisiting Deleuze’s Late Philosophy of the Transcendental Field
Rohitashwa Sarkar, PhD(c), Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, IN, USA
Interested in Post-Kantian Continental Philosophy of the 19th and 20th century (German and French). My dissertation will be on the work of Deleuze and infinity, at Purdue, under the supervision of Daniel W. Smith.
Abstract:
In this paper, I will show how Deleuze’s theory of life radicalizes the Sartrean theory of the transcendental field by using the concept of ‘life’. It is well-known that Deleuze’s theorization in his late essay ‘Immanence: A Life” borrows quite a bit from Sartre’s theorization of consciousness/transcendental field in The Transcendence of the Ego (1937). Sartre critiques Husserl to argue that consciousness is a pure, spontaneous process which does not have an ‘I’ or an ‘I think’ attached to each of it’s intentional processes. This pure consciousness precedes the ‘I’, and the “I’ is only derived through a further reflection, but not given primordially with spontaneous acts of consciousness. Deleuze, in his essay, borrows heavily from this Sartrean idea: he theorizes the transcendental field as a pure consciousness that is prior to the formation of an ‘I’ or an object, a properly transcendental field that is prior to transcendents like subject and object. But he has to also go beyond the Sartrean position, because the transcendental in Sartre, despite being pre-personal, is not quite pre-individual: it holds on to consciousness, and consciousness is an individuated entity. For Deleuze, the transcendental has to be a completely pre-individual flux that gives us the genesis of individuated entities, and so has to be prior even to consciousness qua Sartre. This is why for Deleuze the Sartrean concepts of consciousness and transcendental are not enough: he needs the concept of ‘life’. In the essay, Deleuze shows that life is pre-individual and completely immanent: not immanent to anything, because thinking in that way would bring back a transcendent, but just pure immanence. I will argue therefore that Deleuze shows us how a transcendental in it’s proper radical sense has to go beyond all philosophy of consciousness or philosophy of ‘mind’, and it needs the concept of ‘life’ to do this.
14:30 – 15:00 Reframing Masochism: Deleuze, Žižek, and the Dynamics of Power
Cristian Gonzalez Arevalo, PhD(c), Universität Freiburg, Germany
Legal scholar from Argentina, currently pursuing a PhD in philosophy at the University of Freiburg in Germany. Holds a Master’s degree in Legal Philosophy from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, in legal theories and philosophical thought. Additionally, I had served as a research fellow at the Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint Denis. My academic endeavors have led me to actively participate in numerous conferences across the United States, Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom, where I presented insightful talks on the enduring legacy of Michel Foucault, exploring his profound influence on contemporary legal and philosophical discourse.
Abstract:
Since its initial emergence within the sphere of medical discourse, the concept of masochism has predominantly been regarded as a form of sexual perversion, a perception partly influenced by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s provocative novel, “Venus in Furs.” This literary work significantly shaped early understandings of masochistic tendencies. However, Gilles Deleuze’s seminal text, “Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty,” offers a more nuanced perspective, emphasising masochism’s intrinsic focus on meticulously structured contracts, defined rules, and the deliberate eroticisation of controlled pain. This stands in stark contrast to sadism, which Deleuze characterises by its anarchic impulses, unrestrained desires, and the overt infliction of pain. Through this dichotomy, Deleuze extends the conceptual boundaries of masochism beyond the traditional psychoanalytic framework.
The principal objective of this article is to thoughtfully recast Deleuze’s profound insights on masochism, juxtaposing them with the theoretical contributions of Slavoj Žižek. In undertaking this comparative analysis, our aim is to elucidate the ways in which Deleuze’s distinctive approach may have laid a foundational framework for understanding complex power dynamics through the theoretical lens of masochism. It is my contention that, although the passing of the French philosopher renders any direct intellectual debate with Žižek an impossibility, the centenary of Deleuze’s birth presents a timely and meaningful opportunity. This occasion encourages us to critically examine and reflect upon the enduring influence and profound impact that Deleuze’s philosophical contributions continue to exert within the nuanced and intricate realms of political theory and discourse.
References:
von Sacher-Masoch, L. (1989). Venus in Furs. Letters of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Emilie Mataja (Edited by, Trans. by U. Moeller, et al.). New York: Blast Books.
Deleuze, G. (1991). Coldness and Cruelty. In G. Deleuze, et al. (Eds.), Masochism. New York: Zone Books.
Žižek, S. (2003). The Ambiguity of the Masochist Social Link. In M. A. Rothenberg, et al. (Eds.), Perversion and the Social Relation. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
15:00 CONCLUSION
19:00 Informal Closing Event
DOM gallery
(Birznieka-Upīša 15)
Exhibition “Patchouli Scented Mudbath”
(art. Victoria Björk (IS), Kamile Pikelyte (LT), Paula Zvane (LV))
