Foucault: Lecture 16, 18 March 1986 (Version 1)

<p><em>The Deleuze Seminars</em> is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles&nbsp;Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.</p> <p>&quot;Foucault&quot; was a 25-lecture seminar given from October 1985 to May 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 <em>Foucault</em> (1986).</p> <p>In the 18 March 1986 lecture, topics of discussion include: the succession of three forms: &lsquo;God&rsquo; (seventeenth to eighteenth centuries), &lsquo;Man&rsquo; (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries), &lsquo;&Uuml;bermensch&rsquo; (<em>Surhomme</em>, end of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries); the geological movements of thought; the fold, the unfolding of things, and the superfold (<em>surpli</em>); the theme of the death of man, and the disappearance of the form &#39;Man&#39;; that every form is a composite of the relations of forces; the forces in humans in relation with the forces of elevation to the infinite; the nature of humans, the orders of infinities, thought in the seventeenth century, and cosmological proofs of the existence of God; the German philosopher and theologian Nicholas of Cusa; that to think is to fold; Cuvier and life; that the form &#39;Man&#39; envelops the death (of the form) of Man; Nietzsche; Feuerbach&#39;s <em>The Essence of Christianity</em>; the form &#39;&Uuml;bermensch&#39;; Bichat, animal life, the pluralism of violent deaths, and his book <em>Physiological Research on Life and Death</em> (<em>Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort</em>); the precariousness of the form &#39;Man&#39;; Foucault, language, and <em>The Order of Things</em> (<em>Les mots et les choses</em>); the form &#39;Man&#39; and the power of gathering (<em>rassemblement</em>) language in the act of writing; the being of language; the anonymous murmur; the perpetual return of language to itself; the superfold of language, the &Uuml;bermensch, and the books of Mallarm&eacute;; the &#39;cut up&#39; (simple form) and the &#39;fold in&#39; (the folding on oneself, or the superfold); Roussel and the infinite flight of parentheses; the creation of syntax; the French poet and essayist Charles P&eacute;guy; the French writer and physician Louis-Ferdinand C&eacute;line; the limits of language; and modern literature as an operation towards an invention of syntax.</p> <p>This dataset includes: five mp3 recordings of the lecture (total time, 2:36:33), an aggregate version of the audio recordings into a single mp3, and the complete French transcription of the recorded lecture in both pdf (31 pp) and plain text.</p> <p>-</p> <p><em>Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze</em> 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.</p> <p>&laquo;Foucault&raquo; &eacute;tait un s&eacute;minaire de 25 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; d&#39;octobre 1985 &agrave; mai 1986.