DOI: 10.4231/7yx7-tg10
title: Leibniz and the Baroque, Lecture 11, 3 March1987

description: &lt;p&gt;A series of lectures given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8. This eleventh lecture is organized within a 20-lecture seminar that Deleuze taught between October 1986 and June 1987, presented on March 3, 1987.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Having undertaken a study of sufficient reason, and then of compossible worlds and the individual&rsquo;s freedom &ndash; that is, the topics of chapters 4 and 5 in The Fold &ndash; Deleuze seems to return to certain topics from chapter 3, &ldquo;What is the Baroque?&rdquo; Deleuze explains this strategy as offering a review of what he calls &ldquo;the second part of the course&rdquo; (the focus of which, he says, was to examine the &ldquo;upper floor&rdquo;), with Deleuze preparing for the third part that he defines as the study of &ldquo;the theory of matter&rdquo; in Leibniz. Calling the previous session&rsquo;s discussion a &ldquo;dramaturgy of souls&rdquo;, Deleuze proposes here to explore the new status of life in this series of elevations and descents, taking Tintoretto&rsquo;s work &ldquo;The Final Judgment&rdquo; as an exemplar of interplay between lights and shadows, specifically the darkness in the monad&rsquo;s depths, the &lt;em&gt;fuscum subnigram&lt;/em&gt; of the closed room. Deleuze &ldquo;applies&rdquo; the concept of the Baroque to define any thinker attributing the basic dual property to the fold to be a disciple of Leibniz, e.g., Heidegger &mdash; for whom Deleuze outlines some key points &ndash; and Mallarm&eacute; &mdash; his &ldquo;fold after fold&rdquo; (&lt;em&gt;pli selon pli&lt;/em&gt;) &ndash; and Thomas de Quincey. Deleuze seeks examples of the weaving and layering of the fold, exploring the Baroque in the plastic arts: contrasting the Gothic fold to the Baroque, then Greek bas-relief as well Greek political power, finally, the &ldquo;disturbing case&rdquo; of Ga&euml;tan de Cl&eacute;rambault&rsquo;s fetishistic taste for fabrics and folds.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset includes one .mp3 audio file of the original recorded lecture and the complete French transcription and English translation in odt format.&lt;/p&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze 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;Ayant entrepris l&rsquo;&eacute;tude de la raison suffisante, puis des mondes compossibles et de la libert&eacute; de l&rsquo;individvu &ndash; les sujets des chapitres 4 et 5 de &lt;em&gt;Le Pli&lt;/em&gt; &ndash; Deleuze semble revenir en arri&egrave;re avec des th&egrave;mes du chapitre 3, &ldquo;Qu&rsquo;est-ce que le baroque?&rdquo; Mais, comme il explique son approche vers la fin de la s&eacute;ance, il d&eacute;veloppe ainsi une mise en place de ce qu&rsquo;il appelle &ldquo;la deuxi&egrave;me partie du cours&rdquo; (l&rsquo;examen, dit-il, de &ldquo;l&rsquo;&eacute;tage d&rsquo;en haut&rdquo;) afin de pr&eacute;parer l&rsquo;&eacute;tude pendant le troisi&egrave;me segment de &ldquo;la th&eacute;orie de la mati&egrave;re&rdquo; chez Leibniz.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Seminar of 20 sessions given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at Paris 8-St. Denis University, October 28, 1986, to June 2, 1987, Deleuze’s final seminar in his career. This eleventh session was presented on March 3, 1987.