Deleuze without a doubt became a major figure in various regions of contemporary philosophy. Not only continental philosophy, mostly influenced by phenomenological tradition is adopting Deleuze’s work but also disciplines which seem to be out of reach from mainstream academic reception these days.
Speculative Realism, Speculative Materialism or Object-Oriented Philosophy, even though these young ‘disciplines’ are actually loosely connected only by the rejection of what Meillassoux called correlationism are dealing with Deleuze’s ideas – be it in an affirmative or in a negating way. These ways of working with Deleuze seem to offer controverse forms in continuing Deleuze’s ways of thinking or demonstrating sources of friction which enriches the reception one way or the other. Deleuze’s work seems to become a landmark between and in philosohical disciplines once again.
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A Two-Day International Conference at the American University of Paris
May 27-28, 2010
Paris, France
In recent years, the work of Gilbert Simondon has received greater attention both in France and internationally following the re-publication of his work over the past decade. The importance of Simondon’s thought to the work of French philosophers including Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Stiegler has become increasingly discussed and analysed both in France and in the English-speaking world. At the same time, Simondon’s work has been taken up on its own terms, recognized for the unique contributions that he made to the philosophy of technology, phenomenology and social philosophy. Forthcoming translations of his major works into English will surely instigate a long-overdue introduction of his work within a much broader international community of scholars.
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Call for Papers
4th Biennial Philosophy and Literature Conference
At Purdue University
“Deleuze: Ethics and Politics”
April 9-10, 2010
Purdue University, West Lafayette
Deadline for Paper Submission:
January 15, 2010
The philosopher Michel Serres once described Gilles Deleuze as “an excellent example of the dynamic movement of free and inventive thinking.” Without a doubt, Deleuze was one of the most singular and prolific philosophers of the 20th century. It is no surprise then, that the impact of Deleuze’s thought continues to reverberate throughout a host of diverse disciplines including Philosophy, Literature, Political Theory, Law, Visual Arts, Film Studies, and Education. With recognition of Deleuze’s influence in these various fields, and in the spirit of Serres’ assessment, this conference seeks to motivate an exploration of Deleuze’s inventive thinking in the particular areas of politics and ethics.
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ASCA / CfH
Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam
Centre for the Humanities at Utrecht University
Call for Papers
The third annual International Deleuze Studies Conference will explore how the three creative domains of thought – art, science and philosophy – connect, continue and create together.
The visionary quality of the profoundly generous and complex philosophy of Gilles Deleuze may provide new and productive ways of understanding connections, in a world that is increasingly globally linked and technologically mediated.
Central questions addressed at the conference are: in what ways do disciplines meet and interfere with one another? What kind of methodological and political implications do their dynamic encounters entail? What are the limits of transdisciplinary connections, relations and fields?
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In a philosophical world of proliferating neologisms and the increasingly tangled concepts that they append to, there is certainly something to be said for simplicity. Ever since Occam’s Razor (the principle that “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily”) was incorporated as a principle of rigorous scientific thought, Western thinkers have refreshingly (albeit somewhat irregularly) attempted the occasional theoretical closet-cleanings designed to simplify both the substance and communicability of their ideas. In the era after the medium and the message have long been co-habitants and more, Graham Harman’s recent treatise on the metaphysics of Bruno Latour represents exactly such a closet-cleaning, with a monumental scope and ambition. Harman, as a Heideggerian philosopher, a contemporary intellectual category defined by the man who once famously quipped that “making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy”i, must be well-aware of the allure of simplicity for his readership, who maybe simply overtaxed by complex jargon and the billowing frills of superfluous conceptual verbiage. And especially where hard sciences (or ‘natural philosophies’) are concerned, this allure of simplicity is not without good reason. Early in the twentieth century, the philosopher of science Karl Popper argued that pragmatic and aesthetic concerns aside, Occam’s Razor could be justified theoretically by the criteria of falsifiability, arguing that since more simple theories inevitably apply to more cases than complex ones, that they are therefore falsifiable to a greater degree, and therefore capable of greater empirical truth. In other words, to be simpler, for any theory, is to be truer.
Download Full PDF: Zagorin – Harman’s Latour (Review)
Semiophagy: Journal of Pataphysics and Existential Semiotics is pleased to announce a new volume of articles, artwork, and reviews. Semiophagy is also now accepting papers, artwork, and reviews for peer review. The general theme of our next issue will be “The Disembodied Hand: Signs of the Body”:
Inundated by the media spectacle surrounding Michael Jackson’s death, we are reminded that much of this pop star’s power and ubiquity stemmed from his careful use of iconographic images. Take, for instance, his sequined gloved hand. From the white glove of a clown to that of a cop, the Hamburger Helper mascot to Mickey Mouse, an illuminated hand has a certain existential appeal that surpass ordinary significance and reveals the threshold of a more powerful order. As if disembodied from its own flesh, a gloved hand seems to float before the body, drawing the gaze of others and arresting their movements (e.g. the eye of the hamsa; the white glove of a traffic cop). Likewise other parts of the body have been used by artists and statesmen as icons of their various regimes: Dali’s lips-couch, Carroll’s Cheshire grin, the eye of Ra, the boot of Italy, Hitler’s saluting arm, etc. Accordingly, Semiophagy invites articles that explore the existential allure of these incorporeal body parts and their theoretical implications. From Lacan’s phallus to Deleuze and Guattari’s floating eyes of the ‘white wall/black hole’ system, Bataille’s Story of the Eye to Žižiek’s Organs without Bodies, many philosophers and theorists have tried to place these severed parts. Building on their work, what is the power and allure of a disembodied organ?
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