DELEUZE

DIFFERENCE AND REPETITION

Kevin Thompson
2352 N. Clifton, Suite 150.28; TH: 11:00-12:00, and by appointment
773.325.4866 (office); 773.325.7265 (department); Email: kthomp12@depaul.edu

This seminar is a close reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition [1968]. It explores this work’s central
ideas and arguments and examines, in particular, its proposal for an “ontology of pure difference” and a new “image
of thought”.

TEXTS

Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (Columbia, 0231081596)

Jean Hyppolite, Logic and Existence (State University of New York, 0791432327)
Material on Electronic Reserve: http://eres.lib.depaul.edu/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=4518 (Password: phl590)

REQUIREMENTS

One research paper (15-20pp, 4500-6000 words.), due no later than 12:00 p.m. (Noon), 16 June 2010

READING SCHEDULE

APRIL

1: Course Introduction: Transcendental Empiricism: The Ontology and Epistemology of Difference

Hyppolite, Logic and Existence [1953], Introduction, Parts 2.1 & 4 [3-6, 57-70, 105-126; cf. “Translator’s Preface,”
vii-xv]
Deleuze, “Review of Jean Hyppolite, Logique et existence” [1954] [Logic and Existence, 191-195]
________, “Bergson’s Conception of Difference” [1956] (on e-reserve)

8: NO CLASS

15: Difference and Repetition [1968], Prefaces & Introduction [xv-xxii, 1-27]
22: Chapter I: Difference in Itself [28-69]
29: Chapter II: Repetition for Itself [70-128]

MAY

6: Chapter III: The Image of Thought [129-167]

13: Chapter IV: Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference [168-191]
20: Chapter IV: Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference [191-221]
27. Chapter V: Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensible [222-244]

JUNE

3: Chapter V: Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensible [244-261]

10: Conclusion [262-304]
16: **RESEARCH PAPER DUE BY NO LATER THAN 12:00 P.M. (NOON)**
 RECOMMENDED SECONDARY LITERATURE

I. GENERAL

Keith Ansell Pearson, ed. Deleuze and Philosophy: The Difference Engineer (Routledge, 1979)
Constantin V. Boundas and Dorothea Olkowski, eds. Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of Philosophy (Routledge,
1994)
Claire Colebrook, Gilles Deleuze (Routledge, 2002)
Philip Goodchild, Gilles Deleuze and the Question of Philosophy (Associated University Press, 1994)
Michael Hardt, Gilles Deleuze: An Apprenticeship in Philosophy (University of Minnesota Press, 1993)
John Marks, Gilles Deleuze: Vitalism and Multiplicity (Pluto Press, 1998)
Adrian Parr, ed. The Deleuze Dictionary (Columbia University Press, 2005)
Paul Patton, ed. Deleuze: A Critical Reader (Blackwell, 1996)

II. DIFFERENCE AND REPETITION

Keith Ansell Pearson, Germinal Life: The Difference and Repetition of Gilles Deleuze (Routledge, 1999)
Manuel DeLanda, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (Continuum, 2002)
Daniel Smith, “The Doctrine of Univocity: Deleuze’s Ontology of Immanence,” in Deleuze and Religion, ed. Mary
Bryden (Routledge, 2001), 167-183.
________, “Deleuze, Kant, and the Theory of Immanent Ideas,” in Deleuze and Philosophy, ed. Constantin V.
Boundas ( Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 43-61.
________, “Deleuze’s Philosophy of Mathematics,” in Virtual Mathematics: The Logic of Difference, ed. Simon
Duffy (Clinamen Press, 2006)
________, “The Concept of the Simulacrum: Deleuze and the Overturning of Platonism,” Continental Philosophy
Review, Vol. 38, Nos. 1-2 (April 2005), 89-123
James Williams, Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide (Edinburgh
University Press, 2003)

MATERIAL ON ELECTRONIC RESERVE

Gilles Deleuze, “Bergson’s Conception of Difference” in his Desert Islands and Other Texts: 1953-1974, ed. David
Lapoujade, trans. Michael Taormina (New York: Semiotext(e), 2004, 1584350180), 32-51 & 294-297.