DOI: 10.4231/p3tp-rz81
title: Foucault: Lecture 19, 15 April 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 15 April 1986 lecture, starting the session with a brief profile of William S. Burroughs, notably his book &lt;em&gt;Naked Lunch&lt;/em&gt;, then recalling the previous reflection on formations of powers and rights, Deleuze examines regimes of images, notably regarding Foucault&rsquo;s three pictorial interventions (on Velasquez, Manet, Ren&eacute; Magritte). With help from Serge Daney&rsquo;s &lt;i&gt;La Rampe,&lt;/i&gt; Deleuze pursues the possibility of linking regimes of images to formations, i.e., sovereignty, discipline and control: Velasquez&rsquo;s &ldquo;Las Meninas&rdquo; linked to the sovereign image. With the second regime of images emerging following World War II (cf. Alain Resnais) as a pedagogy of perception, a third regime was a mannerism of the image, via television programs, radio, but also regimes of control of the image by the image (cf. Coppola, Syberberg, and New Wave as a passage from second to third). Deleuze then reviews the seminar&rsquo;s previous steps yet raises the question of why diagrammatic mutations arise from one historical formation to another, within a social field that is inherently strategic, a combat between affecting forces and affected forces, occurring at singular points of forces acting on each other. Foucault&rsquo;s &ldquo;evolution&rdquo; through his works serves to clarify this: within a year of introducing the mutation of the diagram (&lt;i&gt;Discipline and Punish&lt;/i&gt;), Foucault proposed the importance of points of resistance (&lt;i&gt;The History of Sexuality I&lt;/i&gt;), from the political anatomy of the body to the biopolitics of populations, and here Deleuze derives a third singularity or point of resistance, a third form of affect, as a counter-power, hence the vitalism in Foucault&rsquo;s work, that power invests life while life turns back against power. Deleuze maintains that from &lt;i&gt;The Archeology of Knowledge &lt;/i&gt;onward (1969), Foucault was developing his perspectives on power through practice (cf. the Prison Information Group), but he also imagines Foucault&rsquo;s inner crisis, whether to remain on the side of power or to find the means to &ldquo;cross the line&rdquo;. For Deleuze, this theme of &ldquo;crossing the line&rdquo; is fundamental, and he constructs three possible interventions regarding &ldquo;crossing the line&rdquo;: a desperate one, with no way to cross the line; a moderate one, that crossing the line, while possible, may lead to a new formation that is no better than previously; and an extreme one, to cross the line and leave the side of power, hence Blanchot&rsquo;s &ldquo;the line of the outside&rdquo;, that tears the void apart, that overturns death (cf. &lt;i&gt;The History of Sexuality II: The Use of Pleasure&lt;/i&gt;). &lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&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; juin 1986. 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 15 avril 1986, les sujets de discussion comprennent: l&#39;&eacute;crivain am&eacute;ricain William S. Burroughs et son livre &lt;em&gt;Le festin nu&lt;/em&gt;; les r&eacute;gimes d&#39;images chez Foucault; le cin&eacute;ma d&#39;apr&egrave;s-guerre ou le second r&eacute;gime de l&#39;image, le derri&egrave;re de l&#39;image et les camps de concentration; la porte (cache temporaire) dans le cin&eacute;ma; Benjamin et les arts de la reproduction; Syberberg et les mises en sc&egrave;ne des masses par le nazisme; Paul Virilio; le r&eacute;alisateur fran&ccedil;ais Alain Resnais et l&#39;homme qui revient des morts; le cin&eacute;ma, lire une image, la discipline et la p&eacute;dagogie de l&#39;image; le critique de cin&eacute;ma fran&ccedil;ais Serge Daney; le mani&eacute;risme de l&#39;image, les &eacute;missions de la t&eacute;l&eacute;vision et la radio; la pr&eacute;-visualisation des images dans l&#39;&oelig;uvre du cin&eacute;aste am&eacute;ricain Francis Ford Coppola; les r&eacute;gimes de contr&ocirc;le de l&#39;image par l&#39;image; les mutations diagrammatiques d&#39;une formation historique &agrave; une autre; les rapports de forces; que tout diagramme est strat&eacute;gique; les champs sociaux et les points singuliers; l&#39;id&eacute;e de Foucault de la transformation des diagrammes; les livres de Foucault &lt;em&gt;Surveiller et punir&lt;/em&gt; (une seule forme de pouvoir disciplinaire) et &lt;em&gt;Histoire de la sexualit&eacute;, vol. 1: La volont&eacute; de savoir&lt;/em&gt; (biopolitique des populations); les pouvoirs d&#39;&ecirc;tre affect&eacute;, d&#39;affecter, de la r&eacute;sistance, et la transformation des diagrammes; le droit social et la vie des populations; le vitalisme chez Foucault; les points de r&eacute;sistance et rapports de pouvoir; que dans un champ social la r&eacute;sistance est toujours premi&egrave;re par rapport &agrave; ce qu&#39;elle r&eacute;siste, au pouvoir; Tronti; le silence de Foucault apr&egrave;s &lt;em&gt;Histoire de la sexualit&eacute;, vol. 1&lt;/em&gt;; Foucault et ses luttes; le Groupe d&#39;information sur les prisons (GIP) apr&egrave;s 1968; la question du franchissement de la ligne de pouvoir ou de la ligne du dehors; la d&eacute;couverte par Foucault des points de r&eacute;sistance; et l&rsquo;homme ordinaire et le pouvoir.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 15 April 1986. This is lecture 19 of a 26-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between October 1985 and June 1986.