Camp Abstract
Jakob A. Nilsson &
Sven-Olov Wallenstein

Philosophy, Image/Thought Relations, and Media Forms

In this seminar we look at how Deleuze conceives of the relation between philosophy and images. We examine how his conceptions change and how they remain consistent from the 1960s up through What is Philosophy?. From his 1960 critiques of dogmatic images and calls for new images of thought (and even a thought without image), through later variations of those themes, to his explorations of cinematic thought-images, to image aspects in his later ideas about the specificity of philosophy. We also look at how media form may complicate some of Deleuze’s conceptions of philosophy and images.

You prepare for the seminar by working through 7 study questions for the selected readings, and by bringing along your notes.

Preparatory Readings

·      Deleuze (1968), Chapter 3. The Image of Thought, in Difference and Repetition

·      Deleuze and Guattari (1991), Chapter 1. What is A Concept (from What is Philosophy) 

·      Brief extracts 

o   Extract 1. (ca 3 pages) – Deleuze (1968) – selected bits from interview titled “On Nietzsche and the Image of Thought” 

o   Extract 2. (ca 2 pages) – Deleuze (1976) Extracts from (pseudo-)interview titled “Three Questions on Six Times Two” 

o   Extract 3. (ca 5 pages) – Deleuze and Guattari (1980) – passage from A Thousand Plateaus

o   Extract 4. (1 page) – Deleuze (1983) – extract from interview titled “Portrait of the Philosopher as a Moviegoer”

o   Extract 5. (1 ca page) – Deleuze (1985) – extract from interview titled “On the Time-Image”

o   Extract 6. (ca 5 pages) – Deleuze (1985) – selected bits from ch. 7 of Cinema 2

o   Extract 7 (ca 1 page) – Deleuze (1987) – selected bits from talk titled “What is the Creative Act”

o   Extract 8. (ca 2 pages) – Paola Marrati (2003) – selected bits from her book Deleuze: Cinema and Philosophy

o   Extract 9. (ca 6 pages) – Deleuze and Guattari (1991) – selected bits from ch. 2 of What is Philosophy?

7 Study Questions for your Preparatory Readings

  1. In chapter 3 of Difference and Repetition, Deleuze formulates a critique of dogmatic or representational thought. Which aspects of this critique do you find to be most interesting? Most relevant for understanding also the contemporary world? Are aspects of this critique in need of modification so as to better capture problems with dominant forms of thought today?
  2. How do you understand the role of images in chapter 3 of Difference and Repetition?
  3. In your reading, how do Deleuze’s conceptions of thought/images relations change, and how do they remain consistent from Difference Repetition, across the extracts from later Deleuze texts/interviews/talks, to What is Philosophy? in 1991?
  4. Paola Marrati argues that Deleuze’s conception of the though/image relation changes drastically between in his early work and his later work: from a more-or less negative to a clearly positive evaluation of images. Based in your readings of Deleuze: which aspects of Marrati’s argumentation do you think hold up? Which do not hold up? Are there aspects of continuity throughout early and late Deleuze, as regarding though/image relations, which may be obscured by Marrati’s line of argumentation?
  5. In Deleuze’s latter descriptions, he sometimes refers to philosophical concepts as a type of image. How do concepts as a type of image differ from other kinds of images, which Deleuze sees as belonging to other “thought disciplines” or “thought domains”?  
  6. In which ways are Deleuze’s (and Guattari’s) late definition of philosophy as concept creation implicitly or explicitly attached to the medium of writing? 
  7. Could you imagine such philosophical concept creation to occur instead in and through other media forms (than writing)? And in ways the still keeps to Deleuze and Guattari’s definitions of philosophical concepts as a particular kind of determination of problems? (As opposed to becoming a matter of mixing philosophy with art or shifting over to more artistic forms of advanced thought.)

Jakob A. Nilsson is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Örebro University. Recent publications include the monograph Cinecepts, Deleuze, and Godard-Miéville. Developing Philosophy through Audiovisual Media (Edinburgh, 2023), and a chapter in Contemporary Screen Ethics: Absences, Identities, Belonging, Looking Anew (Edinburgh, 2023). He has published articles in Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy; Journal of Aesthetics & Culture; Cinema.Journal of Philosophy and Moving Image; Theory, Culture & Society; Cinema & Cie. International Film Studies Journal, Rhizomes, and Site Magazine. He also contributes to the forthcoming issue of Deleuze and Guattari Studies. 

Sven-Olov Wallenstein is Professor of Philosophy at Södertörn University, Stockholm, and the editor of the online journal Site Zones. He is the translator of works by Winckelmann, Lessing, Kant, Hegel, Frege, Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Rancière, Agamben, and Adorno, as well as the author of numerous books on philosophy, contemporary art, and architecture. Recent publications include Adornos musik (2024), Aisthesis: Estetikens historia (2 vol., ed. with Cecilia Sjöholm, 2023), Den sista bilden: Det moderna måleriets kriser och förvandlingar(2022), Critical Theory: Past, Present Future (ed. with Anders Bartonek, 2021), and Spacing Philosophy: Lyotard and the Idea of the Exhibition (2019, with Daniel Birnbaum).