DOI: 10.4231/pe4w-ae88
title: Foucault: Lecture 23, 13 May 1986

description: &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Deleuze Seminars&lt;/em&gt; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&quot;Foucault&quot; was a 26-lecture seminar given from October 1985 to June 1986. In these lectures, Deleuze offers his interpretation and analysis of French philosopher Michel Foucault&#39;s work. Examining the theoretical foundations and major themes of Foucault&#39;s philosophy, Deleuze dedicates several lectures to each of what he calls the &quot;three axes&quot; of Foucault&#39;s thought. This seminar coincides with the publication of Deleuze&#39;s book &lt;em&gt;Foucault&lt;/em&gt; (1986).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the 13 May 1986 lecture, Deleuze invites F&eacute;lix Guattari to present what will be his last major intervention in Deleuze&rsquo;s seminars (here newly transcribed and updated). After outlining key points of the previous session, Deleuze again returns to Foucault&rsquo;s 1984 interview with Rabinow and Dreyfus which constitutes for Deleuze Foucault&rsquo;s close-to-final statements on these key points, which Deleuze systematically links to different schools of Marxist thinkers (Frankfurt School, Sartre, Lukacs, Gramsci, Tronti). Then, Foucault&rsquo;s reflections on subjectification turn to Christianity, hence the link to the posthumous &lt;em&gt;Confessions of the Flesh,&lt;/em&gt; with Deleuze gradually moving forward historically toward contemporary forms of subjectivation and three problems regarding today&rsquo;s relationships of power, new forms of resistance and struggle, and relationships between these power relations and forms of resistance, with the question of what new forms of knowledge are at a given time, and how these relate to changes in the intellectual&rsquo;s role, as well as new forms of  of subjectification for women and for men. Here Guattari intervenes, first on how May &rsquo;68 connects with Foucault&rsquo;s reflections on subjectification, then on the importance of the mutations in the psychiatry movement, a linkage between pre-&rsquo;68 politics and shifts in subjectification and social networks as transversality. With Deleuze and Guattari in dialogue as well as with students, Guattari responds about current modes of subjectification (cf. &lt;em&gt;Les Ann&eacute;es d&rsquo;hiver &lt;/em&gt;[The Winter Years]), on links of these to Foucault&rsquo;s perspectives on subjectification and problems of forces as diverse forms of becoming. Following on Guattari&rsquo;s remarks, Deleuze returns to problems raised in Michaux&rsquo;s texts on opening new perceptual fields, and Guattari responds with reflections on international forms of subjectification -- European, Japan, Brazil, Italy. Deleuze relates these comments to Foucault&rsquo;s discovery, in the third axis of subjectification, of points of resistance, openings of potentialities in the social field.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset for the new version includes four files, the translation and transcription of the session in Open Data Text (odt) format, an aggregate version of the audio recordings in a single mp3, and the original Paris-8 French transcription of the recorded lecture. The aggregate audio file has been downsampled.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze&lt;/em&gt; sont une collection d&#39;enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents compl&eacute;mentaires des conf&eacute;rences que le philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Gilles Deleuze a donn&eacute; lors de sa carri&egrave;re &agrave; l&#39;Universit&eacute; de Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&laquo;Foucault&raquo; &eacute;tait un s&eacute;minaire de 26 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; d&#39;octobre 1985 &agrave; juin1986. Dans ces conf&eacute;rences, Deleuze offre son interpr&eacute;tation et son analyse de l&rsquo;&oelig;uvre du philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Michel Foucault. En examinant les fondements th&eacute;oriques et les th&egrave;mes majeurs de la philosophie de Foucault, Deleuze consacre plusieurs conf&eacute;rences &agrave; chacun de ce qu&#39;il appelle les &laquo;trois axes&raquo; de la pens&eacute;e de Foucault. Ce s&eacute;minaire co&iuml;ncide avec la publication du livre de Deleuze &lt;em&gt;Foucault&lt;/em&gt; (1986).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dans la conf&eacute;rence du 13 mai 1986, avec la partiipation de &lt;span new="" roman="" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;
font-family:" times=""&gt;F&eacute;lix Guattari&lt;/span&gt;, Deleuze s&#39;adresse &agrave; : la subjectivation selon Foucault; quatre aspects du pli: 1) le pli et le corps, 2) la r&egrave;gle du pli, 3) la rapport entre le sujet et le vrai, et 4) la vie dans les plis et ce que le sujet est en droit d&#39;attendre; les Grecs et la subjectivation; le pli de la force sur soi-m&ecirc;me; la rivalit&eacute; entre les agents libres; le marxisme et la subjectivation; la dimension esth&eacute;tique de la subjectivation; le philosophe marxiste allemand Ernst Bloch et son concept de l&#39;utopie concr&egrave;te; les m&eacute;thodes individuantes du pouvoir s&rsquo;exerҫant sur la subjectivation; la production de subjectivations historiques qui ne passent pas par le savoir et le pouvoir; l&#39;oubli des anciennes pouvoirs et le manque d&#39;archa&iuml;sme pour les subjectivations; la m&eacute;moire comme un pli, comme subjectivation; la vari&eacute;t&eacute; des modes de subjectivation; la dialectique h&eacute;g&eacute;lienne; la diff&eacute;rence entre le syst&eacute;mique (&eacute;tudes des syst&egrave;mes en d&eacute;s&eacute;quilibre, les unit&eacute;s h&eacute;t&eacute;rog&egrave;nes entre elles, et les relations transversales d&#39;une unit&eacute; &agrave; une autre) et le syst&eacute;matique (dialectique et homog&egrave;ne); et luttes sociales et de nouveaux modes de subjectivation. Deleuze discute aussi les trois probl&egrave;mes suivants: 1) Quelles sont les nouvelles luttes par rapport aux nouvelles formes de lutte &eacute;ventuelles? Y a-t-il un nouveau r&ocirc;le pour l&#39;intellectuel dans ces luttes et par rapport aux savoirs anciens ou nouveaux? Comment des modes de subjectivation qui ont leurs propres r&egrave;gles entrent en rapport avec les nouvelles luttes?&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 13 May 1986. This is lecture 23 of a 26-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between October 1985 and June 1986.