Anti-Oedipus and Other Reflections: Lecture 1, 27 May 1980

<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>“Anti-Oedipus and Other Reflections” was a two-lecture seminar given in late May and early June of 1980. Here, Deleuze reflects on his well-known book, <em>Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia</em> (co-authored with Félix Guattari, 1972; English translation 1977), and other concepts he had been developing up to and at that time.</p>

<p>In this penultimate session, Deleuze opens the discussion to questions, in response to which he addresses: the thorny question of his (and Guattari’s) relationship to and understanding of schizophrenia and schizophrenics; his and Guattari’s understanding that the unconscious works not under the law of structures, but in an unstructured process of emission of random flows, with the schizophrenic’s experience not based on structure or family problems, but on the immediate investment of a historical social field; an outline of types of lines which constitute the focus of schizoanalysis as the determination of the lines that make up an individual or a group, concerning the entire unconscious, a veritable cartography; the distinction between schizophrenia as process, as aggregates of lines of flight, and the schizophrenic as a clinical entity, unable to be held on the lines of flight; philosophy as the creation of concepts, pointing to the constellation – concept, affect, and percept – that constitutes this study; the question from the previous session, what it means to be Leibnizian or Spinozist in 1980; Spinoza’s conception of death, which Deleuze describes as there being no natural death for Spinoza, death coming only from the outside, not from within; Spinoza’s interpretation of sin, linked to Spinoza’s definition of reasons as “the art of organizing good encounters”, thereby increasing one’s power of action (<em>puissance</em>). Deleuze closes with a sequence of advice regarding the search for good encounters, finding lines of flight, knowing who one’s allies are, and certainly not searching for allies in death which has no philosopher or philosophy.</p>

<p>This dataset in its second version contains the two Open Document Texts of the transcription and translation of the session and three .mp3 audio files of the recorded lecture, as well as an aggregate mp3 of the entire lecture. In version 1, also available here, the session’s transcription and translation are published as both pdf and plain text files, as well as also available three .mp3 audio files and the aggregate mp3 of the entire lecture.</p>

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<p><em>Les Séminaires de Deleuze</em> 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>

<p>«Anti-Œdipe et autres réflexions» était un séminaire de deux conférences donné à la fin de mai et au début de juin 1980. Deleuze réfléchit sur son livre bien connu <em>Capitalisme et Schizophrénie 1. L'Anti-Œdipe</em> (co-auteur de Félix Guattari, 1972 ; traduction anglaise 1977), et d'autres concepts qu'il avait développés jusqu'alors.</p>

<p>Dans la conférence du 27 mai 1980, les sujets de discussion comprennent: la schizophrénie; psychiatrie et psychanalyse; la folie comme processus; le psychiatre et philosophe germano-suisse Karl Jaspers, et son livre <em>Strindberg et Van Gogh</em>; les concepts de «flux» et de «processus»; les énoncés du délire selon les lignes historiques et les domaines champs sociaux, et non selon les rapports familiaux; l'écrivain et journaliste autrichien Leopold von Sacher-Masoch; le délire et les lignes de fuite des champs historico-mondiales; cartographie; l'écrivain américain F. Scott Fitzgerald et la fêlure; la segmentarité, ligne et segments; la schizophrénie et la clinique; le philosophe russe Léon Chestov; le fascisme, le totalitarisme et processus; musique et processus; la vie, la mort et processus, et les affects et les concepts; processus et l’apathie; le désir comme processus; le plaisir interrompt le processus, le désir comme processus continu; le processus (le désir, la vie) et le fait (la mort, le plaisir, les contraintes de l'organique); lignes de vie et lignes organiques; le processus de la matière-mouvement, en référence au métallurgiste primitif; le philosophe danois Søren Kierkegaard et la transcendance; le philosophe hollandais Baruch Spinoza, ses <em>Lettres</em>, l’immanence et la mort; et l'état clinique.</p>