A DELEUZIONAL READING GROUP
(Run by Alexandra Fanghanel & Allen Abramson)
WHERE AND
WHEN: Alternate Thursdays, 1-2pm,
Staff Room
FIRST
MEETING: Thursday 4th October, Anthropology
Reception
MOODLE DETAILS: http://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/enrol.php?id=15069
Critical thought, action and politics have all variously benefited from the creative and transformative ways of thinking proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Deleuzian thought has influenced approaches as far reaching as the analysis of art, literature, social and natural sciences, politics and philosophy and, as such, has much to offer our ways of understanding and importantly, transforming - the ways in which the world is thought.
Through discussions of cinema, of psychoanalysis, of bodies, of time, flow and the virtual, Deleuze and Deleuze & Guattari have across a range of texts indicated a wealth of ways in which we might think relations and things differently. Deleuzoguattarian approaches harbour potential for anthropological study of all kinds and we thus propose a reading group to engage with 'rhizomes', ‘the war machine’, ‘bodies with and without organs’, ‘de-territorialization’ and so on.
The Deleuzional reading group will explore some of the potentialities of these and other concepts for anthropological analysis by examining key sections of Deleuze and Deleuze & Guattari’s own texts in parallel with texts that summarise, interpret, apply and critique the ideas they contain (E.g. Massumi, Colebrook, Zizek). We suggest that we meet fortnightly to discuss chosen texts and envisage that the focus of the group might evolve into the directions which reflect our individual and collective research interests.
We welcome participation from any members of staff or postgraduate students who would like the opportunity to begin to think about and discuss Deleuzian approaches.
For more information contact Alexandra Fanghanel at a.fanghanel@ucl.ac.uk
