DOI: 10.4231/vb9t-p820
title: Foucault: Lecture 25, 27 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 27 May 1986 lecture, &lt;span new="" roman="" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;
font-family:" times=""&gt;as the first of two &ldquo;optional&rdquo; end-of-semester sessions, the &ldquo;music session&rdquo; unfolds with an important focus on Pierre Boulez&rsquo;s &lt;i&gt;Pli selon pli &lt;/i&gt;(with two recorded parts played during the session and commentary from an unnamed seminar participant). After the considerable development of &ldquo;line of the fold&rdquo; in the Foucault seminar as well as in the &lt;i&gt;Foucault &lt;/i&gt;book&lt;i&gt;,&lt;/i&gt; Deleuze is here well advanced in preparing his analysis of the fold, and indeed, Boulez&rsquo;s work and title, derived from Mallarm&eacute;&rsquo;s poetry, will play a key, if somewhat understated role in Deleuze&rsquo;s final seminar (in 1986-87) and the next book, both on the fold and on Leibniz and the Baroque. Starting on what he meant previously by &ldquo;interpretation&rdquo; as related to the seminar on Foucault, Deleuze asserts that we have to draw the lines as the signature of philosophical concepts, hence indicating already his larger project, &lt;i&gt;What Is Philosophy?&lt;/i&gt; However, with the session&rsquo;s main focus on linking the concept of the fold and unfolding (&lt;em&gt;le d&eacute;pli&lt;/em&gt;) as an artistic gesture (cf. Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Mallarm&eacute;), Deleuze asks the unnamed presenter to offer selections from Pierre Boulez&rsquo;s composition &lt;i&gt;Pli selon pli&lt;/i&gt;, which incorporates selected Mallarm&eacute; poems, and to which Deleuze provides a reading of one of these poems. For Deleuze, this presentation provides evidence of thought&rsquo;s relationship with art, particularly with the fold, not just in Mallarm&eacute;&rsquo;s poetry (to which Deleuze refers in considerable detail). Deleuze also draws on the English essayist Thomas de Quincey and his book &lt;em&gt;Revolt of the Tartars&lt;/em&gt; for additional support on this relationship. However, given the abrupt ending of the session, it is possible that the complete recording is missing. &lt;/span&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 27 mai 1986, Deleuze commence par expliquer ce que veut dire &laquo;interpr&eacute;tation&raquo; par rapport &agrave; son cours sur Foucault. Les autres sujets de discussion comprennent: la cr&eacute;ation de concepts; la nouvelle acception des noms et des mots; les concepts originaux amen&eacute;s par Foucault (Deleuze affirme qu&#39;il en faut en tracer les lignes, la signature des concepts philosophiques); le pli et le d&eacute;pli comme geste artistique; l&#39;invocation du pli chez po&egrave;te fran&ccedil;ais St&eacute;phane Mallarm&eacute;; et l&#39;essayiste anglais Thomas de Quincey et son livre &lt;em&gt;La r&eacute;volte des Tartares&lt;/em&gt;. Une grande partie de la conf&eacute;rence consiste en l&#39;&eacute;coute du compositeur, chef d&#39;orchestre et &eacute;crivain fran&ccedil;ais Pierre Boulez, &lt;em&gt;Pli selon pli: Portrait de Mallarm&eacute;&lt;/em&gt;, qui incorpore des vers de la po&eacute;sie de Mallarm&eacute;. Deleuze lit aussi une partie de la po&eacute;sie de Mallarm&eacute; qui correspond &agrave; la composition de Boulez.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 27 May 1986. This is lecture 25 of a 26-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between October 1985 and June 1986.