Maurizio Lazzarato Italy Tour (23 aprile - 03 maggio 2012)

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NAPOLI
Lunedi 23 aprile – h16:00

Università “L’Orientale”
Largo s. giovanni maggiore, 32 – Palazzo Giusso Aula 5.1
con Tiziana Terranova

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ROMA, due appuntamenti:

Giovedi 26 aprile – h16:00
“La Sapienza” Facoltà di Scienze Politiche
Piazza Aldo Moro, 5

Venerdi 27 aprile – h17:00
presso ESC Atelier
via dei Volsci 159 (San Lorenzo – Roma)

Libera Università Metropolitana – Maurizio Lazzarato terrà una relazione sul tema del Debito

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BOLOGNA
Domenica 29 aprile – h17:00

Centro Sociale Bartleby
Via San Petronio Vecchio, 30/a

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MILANO
Giovedi 03 maggio – h18:00

NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti
via Carlo Darwin, 20

Read more on D&A website

Julio Varela - Vortex to Virus, Myth to Meme: The Literary Evolution of Nihilism and Chaos in Modernism and Postmodernism - VDM Verlag, 2009

The emergence of nihilism and chaos in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries offers us a case study in how memes work. Memes are bundles of cultural information that display viral properties, sowing the seeds of reality in the individual minds that make up a culture, sub-culture, or counterculture. In the case of nihilism and chaos, the ongoing epistemological and ontological revolution initiated by the likes of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, the collapse of myth as a totalizing source of meaning, and the transition from a Newtonian, deterministic worldview to a quantum-relativistic, chaotic worldview transformed the Western cultural landscape, paving the way for the viral spread of nihilism and chaos to different intellectual and cultural strata. This book provides a framework for understanding how memes work in general and then explores the cultural spread of nihilism and chaos in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Joyce's Ulysses, Beckett's trilogy, and Pynchon's Gravity Rainbow serve as focal points in this study because each work represents a critical juncture in the memetic evolution of nihilism and chaos during the modernist and postmodernist periods.


Julio Armando Varela was born in Miami, Florida. He received his Master of Arts degree in the Program in the Humanities at Florida State University in 1993 and received his Doctorate of Philosophy from the Program in the Humanities at Florida State University in 2004. He lives and teaches humanities and literature in Miami.

Virality : contagion theory in the age of networks by Tony D. Sampson - University of Minnesota Press, Usa, August 2012

A new theory of viral relationality beyond the biological

In this thought-provoking work, Tony D. Sampson presents a contagion theory fit for the age of networks. Unlike memes and microbial contagions, Virality does not limit itself to biological analogies and medical metaphors. It instead points toward a theory of contagious assemblages, events, and affects. For Sampson, contagion is not necessarily a positive or negative force of encounter; it is the way society comes together and relates.

Sampson argues that a biological understanding of contagion has been universally distributed by way of the rhetoric of fear used in the antivirus industry and other popular discourses surrounding network culture. This understanding is also detectable in concerns over too much connectivity, including problems of global financial crisis and terrorism. Sampson’s “virality” is as universal as that of the biological meme and microbe, but is not understood through representational thinking expressed in metaphors and analogies. Rather, Sampson leads us to understand contagion theory through the social relationalities first established in Gabriel Tarde’s microsociology and subsequently recognized in Gilles Deleuze’s ontological worldview.

According to Sampson, the reliance on representational thinking to explain the social behavior of networking—including that engaged in by nonhumans such as computers—allows language to over-categorize and limit analysis by imposing identities, oppositions, and resemblances on contagious phenomena. It is the power of these categories that impinges on social and cultural domains. Assemblage theory, on the other hand, is all about relationality and encounter, helping us to understand the viral as a positively sociological event, building from the molecular outward, long before it becomes biological.

Dr. Tony D. Sampson is senior lecturer and researcher in the School of Arts and Digital Industries at the University of East London.

Contents: Resuscitating Tarde's diagram in the age of networks -- What spreads? from memes and crowds to the phantom events of desire and belief -- What diagram? toward a political economy of desire and contagion -- From terror contagion to the virality of love -- Tardean hypnosis : capture and escape in the age of contagion.

Read more on Sampson's blog

Viral video

Political Theory After Deleuze - Nathan Widder - Continuum, Uk, June 2012

• Pub. date: 28 Jun 2012 (Paperback)
• Pub. date: 26 Apr 2012 (Hardcover)

Recent political theory has shifted decidedly towards ontology, the ‘science of being’, and thus towards examining fundamental concepts of identity, difference, space, and time. This new focus has reinvigorated questions concerning the nature of power, meaning, truth and agency, inspiring novel approaches to individual and collective subjectivity, the emergence of political events and the relationship between desire and politics. In this new study, Nathan Widder shows how Deleuze’s philosophy both inspires and presses beyond political theory’s ‘ontological turn’.

Linking his thought to current political theory debates, Widder explains how Deleuze’s philosophy and ontology of difference are cashed out through a micropolitics of creative and critical experimentation. He further demonstrates how Deleuze challenges ideas of identity and the subject that still dominate both political thought and practice today. Connecting Deleuze to key figures in both classical and contemporary political philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle to Hegel, Nietzsche, Lacan, and Foucault, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in political theory, philosophy, and related disciplines, looking to engage the emerging field of Deleuze studies.

Preface \ Abbreviations \ 1. The Ontological Turn in Political Theory \ 2. Deleuze’s Ontology \ 3. Deleuze’s Nietzsche \ 4. Desire and Desiring-Machines \ 5. Micropolitics \ 6. Conclusion – Pluralism and ‘A Life’ \ Notes \ Bibliography \ Index


Nathan Widder is Reader in Political Theory at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. His previous publications include Reflections on Time and Politics (Penn State University Press, 2008) and Genealogies of Difference(University of Illinois Press, 2002).

‘Looking for the introduction to Deleuze and political theory? You've found it. Nathan Widder gives the most clear and persuasive account of why Deleuze's philosophy matters for contemporary political thought. He situates this significance through an outstanding account of the place of Deleuze among historical and contemporary theories and figures, notably Hegel, Nietzsche and Lacan. The book also explains how Deleuze announces a new departure for political action and critique. In addition to a wonderful array of concrete examples, the book supports its arguments through an exemplary reading of Deleuze's works. A joy to read, and a joy to apply...’

Professor James Williams, University of Dundee, UK

‘Nathan Widder provides a remarkably accessible introduction to Deleuze’s ontology and its implications for political thought. He explains Deleuze’s distinctive contribution to contemporary political theory, namely that ‘we are micropolitical before we are political,’ by way of an informative tour through some of his most difficult texts, including Difference and Repetition, Nietzsche and Philosophy and Anti-Oedipus (co-written with Guattari). This book is an indispensable handbook to Deleuze’s key concepts that will be of interest to beginners as well as advanced students of Deleuze’s thought.’

Paul Patton, Professor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales, Australia

read more on Continnum website

Ontologies of the Present: Dialectics and Genealogy from Hegel to Agamben - directed by Bram Ieven and Geertjan de Vugt @ Utrecht University (March/May 2012)

Ontologies of the Present: Dialectics and Genealogy from Hegel to Agamben
OSL Seminar directed by Bram Ieven en Geertjan de Vugt 

When Foucault famously declared Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reasonthe last book of the 19^th century the bell for the burial of Hegelian historicism was tolled. Foucault’s turn to Nietzsche and his revitalization of genealogy as critique can only be understood in opposition to the Hegelian dialectic. While the dialectic provides a method in which the singularity of thought is recuperated and placed within a larger ‘whole’ (Hegel) or process of unification (Sartre), genealogy shows us how the origin of certain modes of thinking and discourses are not recuperable within a bigger whole (Foucault) and are in fact shot through by a multiplicity that does not let itself become part of any straightforward process of unification (Deleuze).
            However, both dialectics and genealogy are ways of coming to terms with the double bind one finds oneself inevitably confronted with when dealing with the idea that concepts, ideas and critical notions relate to the historical, political and social circumstances in which they are developed. On the one hand it implies that thinking is coached in its own, singular historical conditions, affected by them and shaped through them. On the other hand it implies that thinking itself also directly reflects on history and its own historicity. The idea that thinking should reflect on its own position, the idea that his is what thinking is about, is what the modern concept of critique is all about. The dialectic and genealogy, then, are two ways in which critique can be defined.          
            This seminar is based on three pillars. Firstly participants will familiarize themselves with the dialectic (Hegel, Kojève, Sartre), it’s criticism (Nietzsche, Deleuze, Bataille), and its persistence (Jameson, Malabou). Secondly we will study genealogy as a critical method by focusing on the work of Foucault and his interpretation of Nietzsche. The development of genealogy as a (alternative) form of critique, it turns out, was conceived of as a direct criticism of Hegel and the dialectical method. Finally we will go into one of todays most prevelant reinterpretations of Foucault, namely that of Agamben’s analysis of paradigms.
            By the end of the seminar participants have a thorough understanding of the concepts vital for an understanding of (French) post-structuralist thought: dialectics and its relevance today, the stakes of a philosophy of difference, genealogical analysis and the archaeology of paradigms.

Each seminar session takes place on Friday from 2 to 5PM. For each session a special guest speaker will be invited who will be giving a one hour introduction to the theme after which we will do a close reading of the texts under scrutiny. Reading materials will be distributed in advance. Please register by sending an e-mail to: osl-fgw@uva.nl

Program:

1. Historicity and Dialectics

Friday March 16 2012, 14:00-17:00, PC Hoofthuis 6.25 (Spuistraat 134) CHAIR: t.b.a.

G.W.F. Hegel, ‘Preface: On Scientific Cognition’ in: Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 2-46.

Alexandre Kojève, ‘In place of an Introduction’ and ‘A Note on Eternity, Time, and the Concept’ [Selections] in: Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, New York, Basic Books, 1969, pp. 3-29, pp.

Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Critique of Critical Investigation’ in: Critique of Dialectical Reason, London: Verso, 1991, online:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/critic/praxis.htm

2. The Eternal Recurrence and the Critique of Dialectics

Friday March 30 2012, 14:00-17:00, PC Hoofthuis 6.25 (Spuistraat 134) CHAIR: Rudi Visker

Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 1-68. 

Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, London, Continuum, 1986, pp. 87-88, 156-164, 194-198. 

Michel Foucault, 'Nietzsche, genealogy, history', in: Language, Counter-Memory, Presence, Ithaca,
Cornell University Press, 1977, pp. 139-165.
Michel Foucault, 'The Discourse on Language’, in: The Archaeology of Knowledge, New York,

Pantheon Books, 1972, pp. 215-239.

3. The Return of the Dialectic?

Friday 13 April 2012, 14:00-17:00, PC Hoofthuis 6.25 (Spuistraat 134) CHAIR: Marc de Kesel

Fredric Jameson, ‘Hegel’s contemporary critics’, in: Valences of the Dialectic, London, Verso, pp. 103- 122.

Catharine Malabou, ‘Whose afraid of Hegelian wolves?’ in: Deleuze: A Critical Reader, P. Patton ed., 114-138.

Judith Butler, ‘Foucault: dialectics unmoored’ in: Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth Century France, New York, Columbia University Press, 1999,

Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, ‘Nietzschean critique and the Hegelian commodity, or the French have landed’, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 26, nr. 6, pp. 70-84.

4. Genealogy from Nietzsche to Foucault

Friday April 27 2012, 14:00-17:00, PC Hoofthuis 6.25 (Spuistraat 134) CHAIR: Sjoerd van Tuinen

Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life’ in: Untimely Meditations, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 57-87, 100-107.

Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘341. The Heaviest Weight’ in: The Gay Science, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 164-165.

Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘The Convalescent’ in: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 173-181.

George Bataille, ‘Mr. Nietzsche’ and ‘Nothingness, Transcendence, Immanence’, in On Nietzsche, London, Continuum, pp. 1-12, 177-178.

Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, London, Continuum, 1986, pp. 25-31, 47-49, 68-72. 

Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, New York, Columbia University Press, 1994, pp. 53-58.

Pierre Klossowski, ‘The Experience of the Eternal Return’ in: Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, London, Continuum, 2005, pp. 43-57.

5. From Foucault to Agamben
Friday 11 May 2012, 14:00-17:00, PC Hoofthuis 6.25 (Spuistraat 134) CHAIR: t.b.a.
Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, New York, Pantheon Books, 1972, pp. 135- 199.
Giorgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz, New York, Zone Books, 1999, pp. 138-146.
Giorgio Agamben, ‘Philosophical Archaeology’, in: The Signature of All Things, New York, Zone Books,
2009, pp. 81-113.
Giorgio Agamben, ‘What is the Contemporary?’, in: Nudities, Stanford, Stanford University Press,
2011, pp. 10-20.
Giorgio Agamben, The Sacrament of Language, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2011, pp. 8-11.

6. Agamben’s Genealogy of the Present: Homo Sacer
Friday 25 May 2012, 14:00-17:00, PC Hoofthuis 6.25 (Spuistraat 134) CHAIR: Sonja Lavaert

Giorgio Agamben, ‘What is an Apparatus?’ in: What is an Apparatus?, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2009, pp. 1-24.
Giorgio Agamben, ‘What is a Paradigm?’ in: The Signature of All Things, New York, Zone Books, 2009, pp. 1-24
Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1998, p.1-15, 119-189 

 Read more on OSL website

National Symposium on Deleuze Scholarship: “Lines of Flight in the Lowlands” May 15, 2012 @ Utrecht University

National Symposium on Deleuze Scholarship: 


“Lines of Flight in the Lowlands” May 15, 2012. 


Conveners: Rosi Braidotti and Rick Dolphijn.


The purpose of this study day is to assess the state of current Deleuze scholarship in our region, with strong emphasis on new directions of study and new generations of scholars. One session will be dedicated to the topic of ‘geo-philosophy and globalisation’; another session will be open and subject to a call for papers. Short papers will be presented with ample space reserved for discussion.


Invited speaker: to be announced.


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