VO "Aesthetics in Deleuze and Guattari" (Stephen Zepke)

Aesthetics in Deleuze and Guattari

Dr. Stephen Zepke

This course examines the role of aesthetics in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Aesthetics is central to their work inasmuch as it is inseparable from their ontology, and it is this inseparability that both marks their contribution to twentieth century thought and congeals a new trajectory through the history of philosophy in their readings of, amongst others, Kant, Spinoza, Nietsche and Bergson. As such, Deleuze and Guattari’s ontology is no longer focussed on the question of ‘what is?’, the question of essence or ‘Being’, but on the question of ‘what happens?’, the question of energetics or becoming. In answering this question the problems of sensation and creativity are foregrounded as at once aesthetic and ontological problems.

The course is designed to give an overview of the work of Deleuze and Guattari, both the books they wrote together and separately, and gives an introduction to the philosophical discipline of Aesthetics. The course will trace the development of Aesthetics through some of the central problems it poses (the conditions of experience, beauty, the nature of the sensation, the affect, formalism Vs expression, abstraction), while focussing on philosophers that Deleuze and Guattari specifically engage with over aesthetic questions (Kant, Nietzsche, Spinoza, Bergson, and Merleau-Ponty). Attention will also be given to Deleuze and Guattari’s development of these problems and philosophies in relation to various aesthetic periods and concepts (Romanticism, Modernism, abstraction, the avant-garde, etc.), to art historical theory (Heinrich Wölfflin, Alois Riegl, Wilhelm Worringer, Clement Greenberg) and different art practices (painting, music, cinema, etc.). Finally, Deleuze and Guattari’s differences to and similarities with other contemporary Aesthetic philosophies will be discussed (Badiou, Ranciere).

Nietzsche, week 4)

• Lecture Stephen Zepke (audiobook-format m4b; works for example with Apple iTunes); As this is a RapidShare-Downloadlink any file that has not been accessed within 90 days will be deleted by the provider. Please remove this link as soon as it is not working anymore. Thanks!

Spinoza, week 5)

• Lecture Stephen Zepke (audiobook-format m4b; works for example with Apple iTunes); As this is a RapidShare-Downloadlink any file that has not been accessed within 90 days will be deleted by the provider. Please remove this link as soon as it is not working anymore. Thanks!

Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty, week 8)

• Lecture Stephen Zepke (audiobook-format m4b; works for example with Apple iTunes); As this is a RapidShare-Downloadlink any file that has not been accessed within 90 days will be deleted by the provider. Please remove this link as soon as it is not working anymore. Thanks!

Weblinks

Text:

• webdeleuze.com (Transcripts of lectures by Gilles Deleuze)
• generation-online.org (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari)
• plato.stanford.edu (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Gilles Deleuze)
• www.langlab.wayne.edu (ABC von Gilles Deleuze mit Claire Parnet)

Notes:

• www.protevi.com (Course notes on Deleuze by John Protevi)

Video broadcasts:

• Videobeitrag: »›Je‹ et le pronom personne« Vincennes, 1980