International Conference, Athens, Greece, 24-26 April 2015

The Philosophy Department and the Graduate Programme for Theory, Politics and Culture of Trent University in Ontario, Canada, in co-operation with the Sector of Philosophy of the Department of Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology of the University of Athens, the Department of Social Anthropology and the Department of Political Science and History of Panteion University in Athens, the Sector of Philosophy of the Department of Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology of the University of Ioannina, the School of Architecture of the Technical University of Crete, the faculty of Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the School of Architecture of Thessaloniki, and the French Institute of Greece are organizing an international conference on “Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari: Refrains of Freedom”. The conference, also supported by the Embassy of Canada in Greece, will be trilingual (English, French and Greek) and will take place in Athens, Greece between 24th and 26th of April 2015. It will be a three-day event comprising plenary sessions, seminars and round table discussions.

The conference will concentrate on the relation between pluralism and the philosophy of difference, as the latter is formulated in the writings of Deleuze and Guattari. Pluralism is still today one of the demands of contemporary democracy. In question, though, is a pluralism capable of keeping at bay as much the fragmentation of political positions as the concomitant weakening of political resolve, while also pursuing an “assemblage” of several conflicting political wills that Deleuze and Guattari designate paradoxically as inclusive disjunction. By addressing anew the relation between pluralism and the philosophy of difference, the conference will deal with issues originating in the thematics and problematics of Deleuze’s and Guattari’s writings inside an exploratory framework of problems preoccupying the Greek imaginary, which in no way entails the lack of a geopolitical dimension. For example, the dialectics of territory (territorialisation / deterritorialization), which will be at the center of the conference discussions, will provide the participants with the opportunity to reflect on the dynamic differentiation and modulation of cultural traditions, beyond the fallacy of their allegedly diachronic identity or their nihilist rejection. Pressing concerns with the Other, heterogeneity, hospitality, the foreigner, immigration, the one thousand little sexes, minor languages and minor writing, cultural constants, identity and difference, the many helpful and non-helpful opinions circulating about the postmodern and deconstruction may be brought again forth and regarded through new, Deleuzian this time, lenses. In line with the multi-disciplinary output of Deleuze and Guattari, the conference will encourage discussions and interventions on the role of refrains of freedom in post-Deleuzian work on cinema, theater and music, as well as in post-Deleuzian architectural theory and practice.

Call for Papers