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).

Audiomitschnitte der Vorlesungen

Sämtliche Vorlesungen als Audiobook-Downloads

Audiobook-Download der einzelnen Vorlesungen von Stephen Zepke (hohe Qualität)

Introduction

<flashmp3>zepke_intro.mp3</flashmp3>

Kant 1, week2

<flashmp3>Zepke_kant1.mp3</flashmp3>

Kant 2, week3

<flashmp3>Zepke_kant2.mp‎3</flashmp3>

Nietzsche, week 4

<flashmp3>Zepke_nietzsche.mp3‎</flashmp3>

Spinoza, week 5

<flashmp3>Zepke_spinoza.mp3‎</flashmp3>

Bergson and Cinema, week 6

<flashmp3>Zepke_bergson.mp3‎</flashmp3>‎

Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty, week 8

<flashmp3>Zepke_merleauponty.mp3‎</flashmp3>

Guattari, week 9

Kein Audiomitschnitt vorhanden.

Visual Art and Art History: Riegl, Worringer, week 10

<flashmp3>Zepke_riegel_worringer.mp3</flashmp3>

Visual Art and Art History: Francis Bacon, week 11

<flashmp3>Zepke_bacon2.mp3</flashmp3>

Alain Badiou on Deleuze, week 12

<flashmp3>Zepke_badiou1.mp3‎</flashmp3>

• Rezension »Das Jahrhundert« (zeit.de)

Alain Badiou, week 13

<flashmp3>Zepke_badiou2.mp3‎</flashmp3>

Weblinks

Bibliography

• bibliography (Select Bibliography of Major Primary and Secondary Sources by John Protevi)

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)
• deleuze.tausendplateaus.de
• (Beth Metcalf: Univocity of Deleuze)

Reading Notes

• www.protevi.com (Course notes on Deleuze by John Protevi)
• hardt (Michael Hardt: Reading Notes ATP, Anti Ödipus)

Audio and Video broadcasts

• Videobeitrag: Deleuze: »›Je‹ et le pronom personne« Vincennes, 1980
• Audiobeitrag: Badiou: Theatre et philosophie, 2008
• Videobeitrag: Badiou: Art and politics, Berlin, 2008