[csaa-forum] Free Event: Libidinal Philosophy Research Day

[phallacy at tpg.com.au]

Libidinal Philosophy Research Day

A special event hosted by The Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy

In France in the nineteen-sixties and –seventies there appeared a number of fascinating 
confluences of philosophy and psychoanalysis, including the works of Jean-François Lyotard, Gilles 
Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and Jacques Lacan, among others. Such works often showed a marked 
influence from Friedrich Nietzsche and his French interpreters such as Georges Bataille and Pierre 
Klossowski, who emphasized the role of the body and affect in his thought. What marks out these 
works as distinctive is the way desire, understood through Freud and Nietzsche as a force which 
challenges the supposed self-possession and transparency of reason, motivates a reconsideration 
of what philosophy is, and how it should be pursued. These reconsiderations are played out in a 
rich variety of philosophical explorations, of topics including the arts and art criticism, politics, 
linguistics, semiotics, the body, and economics, as well as of philosophical thinking itself and of the 
production of philosophical texts. In recent times, while the works of many of these thinkers still 
garner much attention, the specifically libidinal themes they develop are often overlooked or 
ignored, and stand in danger of being forgotten. This special event seeks to refocus attention on 
the role of the libido, desire, and affect in the works of these thinkers, with the larger aim of 
illuminating the relation of desire to philosophy itself, and of questioning what a “libidinal 
philosophy” – one which takes the implications of the nature of desire for philosophy seriously – 
can do. 

Participants
James Williams (University of Dundee)
Justin Clemens (University of Melbourne)
Graham Jones (Independent Scholar)
Jon Roffe (MSCP; University of Tasmania; LaTrobe University)
Ashley Woodward (MSCP)

9am – 5pm
Friday, 6 February 2009
The Gryphon Gallery, 1888 Building
The University of Melbourne
Parkville Campus

This is a FREE event, and all are welcome. Some refreshments will be provided.