"The Living Thought of Gilles Deleuze" Conference

University of Copenhagen, Denmark, November 3-4, 2005

One of the prominent themes in the writings of Gilles Deleuze is an
understanding of thinking as being alive. Thinking is conceived as an
affirmation of life, and life itself is affirmed by thinking as something
that is alive. In other words, the relationship between life and thinking
is an affirmative relationship, in which life is affirmed by thinking and
thinking affirmed by life. The notion of the double affirmation in
Nietzsche et la philosophie (1962) is revolving around such an affirmative
relationship between life and thinking.The affirmative relationship between life and thinking is further
elaborated in the books on Proust et les signes (1964) and Le bergsonisme
(1966). In these books Deleuze explores the affirmative relationship
between life and thinking through the lens of temporality. The
temporality of the affirmation is primarily described in two modes: the
proustian apprenticeship of signs as an ongoing becoming, as a number of
leaps and revelations, is organized from the viewpoint of a future,
whereas the bergsonian notions of duration, memory and élan vital
accentuates a relationship to the past.

It can be argued that the double affirmation of life and thinking is one
of the basic themes in Différence et répétition (1968). In fact, Deleuze
presents the reader with a conception of life as a multitude of
differential relationships between immanent forces, and thinking in the
affirmative mode is described as a number of temporal syntheses and
repetitions. In this respect we can rearticulate the complex notions of
difference and repetition as they are presented by Deleuze as a
philosophical portrait of living thought.

The collaboration between Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari introduces,
among other aspects, an experimental and subversive dimension. The
critique of psychoanalysis in L’Anti-Œdipe (1972) encompasses at least two
dimensions: a specific critique of a certain French psychoanalysis in the
early 1970s, and a more general critique of a mode of thinking that
willingly or unwillingly tries to domesticate life. In Mille plateaux
(1980) the authors present the reader with a number of critical models,
ranging from the rhizome to the nomadic machine, all of which contain a
certain potential for an affirmative and experimental thinking. If
L’Anti-Œdipe criticizes thinking in the mode of negativity, then Mille
Plateaux creates a number of critical models for an affirmative thinking.

The books on cinema returns to a number of earlier themes in the writings
of Gilles Deleuze: the apprenticeship of signs, difference and repetition,
the temporality of affirmation... The history of cinema is described as an
apprenticeship of moving and temporal signs, and the notion of the
crystalline image, for instance, rearticulates the problem of how to
introduce time in thinking. The books are not simply applied philosophy,
but rather an attempt to articulate the experience of living images in
terms of thought: an empiricism of the cinema.

However, it is probably in the book on Foucault (1986) that Deleuze most
clearly outlines his understanding of living thought. His general
description of Foucault’s writings is guided by two questions: What is
“the middle” or the constant element in the thought of Foucault? What is
the element that Foucault and Deleuze have in common? The response to both
of these questions is concentrated in a notion of living thought, or in
other words a philosophical vitalism.

In Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? (1991) the authors further elaborate the
understanding of living thought by describing it as a creative thinking:
philosophy as creation of concepts, science as creation of functions, art
as creation of affects and percepts. This notion of thinking as a creation
of different entities — concepts, functions, affects and percepts — is a
continuation of the nietzschean notion of a double affirmation between
life and thinking. Between these two notions there is a wide variety of
manifestations and critical expositions of living thought in the writings
of Gilles Deleuze.

The conference on The Living Thought of Gilles Deleuze is held on the
occasion of the 10th anniversary of the voluntary death of Gilles Deleuze.
However, it is not simply our intentions to commemorate the death of a
philosopher, but more importantly to explore and celebrate the thoughts of
Gilles Deleuze as very much alive today.

The conference will be held November 3-4, 2005, at the University of
Copenhagen, Denmark, and is organized and coordinated in collaboration
between the University of Copenhagen and the Copenhagen Business School.
The language at the conference will be English. With the exception of
keynote speakers, whom will be announced shortly, each of the
presentations at the conference will be limited to 20 minutes in order to
facilitate a commentary session regarding each paper. It is planned that
the papers at the conference will be published afterwards in an anthology.

Proposals for papers, including a short academical biography, must be
submitted by January 15th 2005 to the organizers at kimsu@hum.ku.dk and
the notification regarding acceptance will be announced by February 15th
2005.

For further information, please contact the organizers:

Associate professor

Martin Fuglsang

Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy

Copenhagen Business School

Blaagaardsgade 23B

DK 2200 Copenhagen N

Denmark

Phone: (+45) 3815 2813

Email: fuglsang@cbs.dk

Assistant research professor

Kim Su Rasmussen

Department of Cultural Studies and the Arts,

Comparative Literature and Studies in Modern Culture

University of Copenhagen

Njalsgade 140-142, Building 25.5

DK 2300 Copenhagen S

Denmark

Phone: (+45) 3532 9269

Email: kimsu@hum.ku.dk