August 03, 2023
Kritika Kultura is inviting everyone to the Alex Taek-Gwang Lee Lecture Series. The first installment titled--Marxism After Deleuze--will be held on August 24, 2023 (Thursday), 5:00 PM, at the Natividad Galang Fajardo Conference Room, De La Costa Hall, Ateneo de Manila University.
The Alex Taek-Gwang Lee Lecture Series is co-sponsored by Ateneo de Manila University's Kritika Kultura, University of Sto. Tomas's UNITAS and Department of Philosophy, and University of the Philippines Baguio's College of Social Sciences.
In keeping with the University's health and security protocols, attendees are kindly enjoined to register via https://bit.ly/KKLectureMARXISMAFTERDELEUZEAug24 by August 23 (Wednesday).
For more updates, please visit the Kritika Kultura Facebook page.
Abstract. In this lecture, I examine Deleuze’s relationship with Marx through the lens of Deleuze’s unwritten book, Grandeur de Marx. Despite the failure of Soviet socialism, the philosopher acknowledged that his philosophical endeavours were deeply intertwined with Marxism at the beginning of the 1990s. Indeed, Deleuze’s insistence on this connection was not simply an expression of regret or apology for his own political beliefs. It may be recalled that in the 1990s, Marxism continued to serve as an intellectual weapon for resistance to neoliberal globalisation, which had spread beyond the United States and Europe. The rise of global capitalism was not a failure of Marxism but the result, indeed, a coming to pass, of what Marx had so insightfully predicted in his writings. Deleuze’s understanding of Marx could provide insight into the relationship between Marxism and political movements. For Deleuze, the possibility of Marxism lies in the critique of Hegel’s optimism about automation. Hegel believed that machines would liberate workers from labour, but Marx saw in the working conditions of the nineteenth century that workers were instead enslaved to machines. Deleuze points this out in his comments on the controlled society, emphasising the possibilities of Marxism. Deleuze’s unfinished project on Marx can therefore be seen from another angle as a response to “de-Marxification”, such as Francis Fukuyama, who declared the end of history. While there are many interpretations of Deleuze’s unfinished book on Marx, my argument in this lecture is that Deleuze sought to recreate the conditions of Marx’s critical analysis by taking philosophy as the actualisation of multiplicity. From this perspective, this lecture will explore the possibilities of Marx as read by Deleuze and seek a renewal of Marxism through Deleuze.
Bio. Alex Taek-Gwang Lee is a professor of cultural studies at Kyung Hee University in South Korea and a director of Global Centre for Technology in Humanities (GCTH). He was visiting professor at Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE) at the University of Brighton in United Kingdom and at the Centre for Culture Media and Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University in India and an international visiting scholar at Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at National Taiwan University in Taiwan. He served as an academic adviser for Gwangju Biennale in 2017 and as a program manager for the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2021. He is also a member of the advisory board for symplokē journal and the board member of The International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs (ICCTP). Additionaly, he edited the third volume of The Idea of Communism (2016) and Deleuze, Guattari and the Schizoanalysis of Postmedia (2023). He published articles in journals such as Telos, Deleuze and Guattari Studies and Philosophy Today, and chapters in many volumes.
