CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland
Gilles Deleuze
Organiser: Rick Dolphijn
Dolphijn, Rick (Erasmus University
Rotterdam, the Netherlands) INTRODUCTION: DELEUZIAN PERSPECTIVES
In his first book, written at the age of 26, Gilles Deleuze rereads the
philosophy of Hume. Here, he comes up with an interesting position, which
culminates in the concept of 'empiricism'. A position which enhances his point
of departure that is constantly developed and reformulated within his following
writings. In short, empiricism refers to a focus on relations, the immanent
connections as they are made between one 'body' and another. Experiencing
practices as a culmination of relations, of processes, will be the focus of this
session. Sometimes they have a unifying character, sometimes they travel in
every possible direction, but they are processes all the same. Deleuze captures
his perspective as follows: 'Thinking with AND instead of thinking IS, instead
of thinking for IS: empiricism never had another secret. Try it, it is a quite
extraordinary thought, and yet it is life.'
Mikko Tuhkanen (State University of New
York, U.S.A). THE ETHICS OF THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER: GLISSANT, DELEUZE, AND
CREOLIZATION
A number of critics (e.g., Aijaz, JanMohamed, and Parry) have protested against
theorizing colonization as an intermingling and hybridization of the colonized
and the colonizing cultures because, for them, this approach ignores the
absolute violence of colonialism against “native” cultures. I propose to
address this critique by reading Edouard Glissant’s theory of creolization
through (some aspects of) Gilles Deleuze’s work. Applying Deleuze’s reading
of Spinoza to the notion of creolization, I suggest we understand the colonial
encounter as an encounter of bodies that necessarily refigures the relations of
both encountering bodies. While recognizing the anti-identitarian (and
anti-identity-politics) thrust in Glissant, we can through Deleuze dislodge the
framework from which his work on post-coloniality seems apolitical and elitist.
Sanders, Olaf (University of Hamburg,
Germany) RHYTHM, TIME AND CREATION
The concept of rhythm that Deleuze and Guattari develope in "Mille
plateaus" might be one of the most fruitful terms for a better
understanding of popular culture. Rhythm is, according to Deleuze/Guattari, the
space between the milieus or the inbetween where novelities will emerge: the
tertium datur between chaos and order. In other words and to cut a long story
short, rhythm produces new practices by transcoding and reterritorializing the
milieus which has to be shown through empirical research. A re-reading of
"Différence et répétition" and its offshoot, "Spinoza et la
problème de l¹expression", could be helpful to understand this process of
permanent creation and to built categories for critical analysis. In the context
of these earlier works it will become obvious that time is no line that links
the past with the present and the future but a productive intermixture of three
interacting spheres from where ethics can arise.
Schmiedel, Stevie (University of
Nottingham, United Kingdom) RETERRITORIALISING INSANITY: SARAH KANE INBETWEEN
RHIZOMATICS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS
Gilles Deleuze intended to rock the Lacanian notion of identity and
desiring-production. Sarah Kane's late work was an attempt to portray her own
non-identity: her characters' genders are elusive, as are their psychological
make-ups. In her original staging at the Royal Court, Crave's four characters
performed the text as a poetic and rythmic event, allowing syntax and
repetitions to create a symphony the way Deleuze and Guattari had suggested a
book to be read. Thomas Ostermeier brought this staging to Berlin where it was
strongly criticised as unintelligible and bleak. In contrast, a staging in
Hamburg, mapping Kane's text onto a clearly pathological Oedipal family, was
highly acclaimed. A text that could have successfully challenged binarisms had
been remapped onto a 'safe' and intelligible territory: a psychoanalytic
critique of society. My paper aims to discuss these stagings in the light of
Deleuze's anti-psychiatric and anti-fascist ideas.
Kjetil Rødje (University of Oslo,
Norway) EATING DISORDERS AS PARANOIAC DESIRE FOR DETACHMENT
This paper is based upon an empirical study on how subjectivity is performed and
created in practices and discourses on eating disorders. My focus is on the
representations of subjectivity in these discourses and through the multiple
voices and practices that can here be found. I read these representations as a
performance of, and quest for, an autonomous subject, free from restricting
attachments, social as well as material. This subject is in control of itself,
its body and its surroundings. My argument is that this subject as an autonomous
and singular agent to be represented is an unreachable ideal. It constitutes a
BwO that strongly wards of all threatening desires, a territoriality to be kept
intact. This paranoiac reaction forces the subject into a self-destructive
practice involving frantic reterritorializations of desire-flows. My paper will
look at how Deleuze can be used to bring new and helpful understandings into the
field called eating disorders.
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