A Thousand Plateaus I, RAI-3 Recordings, Lecture 9, 2 March 1976 (Part 1)

<p><em>The Deleuze Seminars</em> is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.</p>

<p>Following the publication of <em>Anti-Oedipus</em> in 1972, Deleuze continues to develop the proliferation of concepts that his collaboration with Guattari had yielded. Throughout the 1970s, Deleuze and Guattari’s interest in expanding these concepts continues, eventually producing the sequel, <em>A Thousand Plateaus</em>.</p>

<p>The 1975-1976 seminar sessions were filmed by one of his students, Marielle Burkhalter, as part of her masters project, “Filming Philosophy as it Happens.” Enrico Ghezzi acquired the videos for broadcast on the RAI-3 cinema program “Fuori Orario,” after inviting Burkhalter to screen them at a festival he co-curated. Marielle Burkhalter, along with Stavroula Bellos, would eventually become the director of the L’Association Siècle Deleuzien and oversaw the French transcriptions of Deleuze’s seminars at the Paris 8 “Voix de Gilles Deleuze” website (http://www2.univ-paris8.fr/deleuze/).</p>

<p>In this group of lectures, Deleuze offers the multi-faceted focus of the semester’s work, mainly to distinguish forms of faciality, encompassing black-holes/white-walls, faces and landscapes, facial power-relations, redundancy, molecular multiplicity, the rhizome, the refrain, and courtly love. As none of the films was marked chronologically, the order of the successive seminars was determined based on the content provided in the videos, notably Deleuze’s course organization that followed successive chapters from <em>A Thousand Plateaus. </em>Besides the content as one guidepost as well as the physical disposition of classroom details, the chronologically first video was the one titled “Deleuze su molteplicità molare e molteplicità molecolare” followed by the two successive four-hour segments, titled “Il Senso in meno”. Furthermore, despite no precise dates provided, a sequence of dates was extrapolated before and after session 7 based on comments by an Iranian student announcing during that session that a demonstration would occur later that day, 3 February 1976.</p>

<p>In session 9, 2 March 1976 (date approximate), the film corresponds to the third segment of the “Il Senso in Meno” II recording (the eighth segment of both parts), on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Po2tIgeD4, corresponding to time stamp 2:23:07 to the end of the third segment at 3:45:45. </p>

<p>In session 9, 2 March 1976, the extensive discussion here (as in the previous session) develops material included in <em>A Thousand Plateaus</em>, notably plateau 5, on sign systems in relation to territoriality. The session shifts for approximately 36 minutes into an emotional debate among the students, as well as with comments from Deleuze and Guattari, about whether one student in particular -- a woman who hurled an unsubstantiated accusation (possibly about plagiarism) at Deleuze -- should be forced to leave the class. Once this matter is resolved, Deleuze continues for another 35 minutes in this part (Il Senso in Meno II.8) and 36 minutes in the next (Il Senso in Meno II.9).  Deleuze refers to the need for drawings (cf. <em>A Thousand Plateaus, </em>pp. 135-137), the first pertaining to a “center of signifiance” from which signs are distributed across concentric circles and from which, in the outside circle, emerges a line of flight. He then develops a second, passional schema, that proceeds through circular irradiation from a point of subjectivation. Then, following the aforementioned debate, Deleuze continues by considering binarisms and their link to the exercise of a certain type of power and dominant language in contrast to polyvocality of bodies, to which he links the two systems outlined earlier, opting for Peirce’s terminology of signs (index, icon, symbol) to designate territorial movements and to create networks of signs on a kind of continuum. Deleuze concludes provisionally that humanity’s two maladies are signifiance and interpretation.</p>

<p>The French transcription and subsequent English translation were developed for the Deleuze Seminars directly from the RAI-3 recording, located at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emORIIs8esw&t=10347s. This dataset includes two files: a revised French transcription and new English translation in odt format.</p>

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<p>Les Séminaires de Deleuze sont une collection d'enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents complémentaires des conférences que le philosophe français Gilles Deleuze a donné lors de sa carrière à l'Université de Paris 8.</p>

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<p>Dans la séance 9, le 2 mars 1976, la discussion développe ici (comme lors de la séance précédente) le matériel inclus dans <em>Mille plateaux</em>, notamment le plateau 5, sur les systèmes de signes en relation avec la territorialité. La séance se transforme pendant environ 36 minutes en un débat soutenu entre les étudiants, ainsi qu'avec des commentaires de Deleuze et Guattari, sur la question de savoir si une étudiante en particulier -- une femme qui a lancé une accusation peu fiable (peut-être de plagiat) contre Deleuze -- devrait être forcée de quitter la classe. Une fois cette question résolue (elle avait déjà quitté la salle), Deleuze continue pendant 35 minutes supplémentaires dans cette partie (Il Senso in Meno II.8) et 36 minutes dans la suivante (Il Senso in Meno II.9). Deleuze fait référence à la nécessité de dessins (cf. <em>Mille plateaux</em>, plateau 5), le premier se rapportant à un « centre de signification » à partir duquel les signes sont distribués sur des cercles concentriques et d'où, dans le cercle extérieur, émerge une ligne de fuite. Il développe ensuite un deuxième schéma, passionnel, qui procède par irradiation circulaire à partir d’un point de subjectivation. Puis, suivant le débat évoqué plus haut, Deleuze considère les binarismes et leur lien à l’exercice d’un certain type de pouvoir et de langage dominant, en opposition à la polyvocalité des corps, à laquelle il rattache les deux systèmes évoqués plus haut, optant pour la terminologie des signes de Peirce (index, icône, symbole) pour désigner les déplacements territoriaux et créer des réseaux de signes sur une sorte de continuum. Deleuze conclut provisoirement que les deux maux de l’humanité sont la signifiance et l’interprétation.</p>