Acid Horizon Unfolding the Deleuze Seminars: Experimental Pedagogy, Philosophy, and Politics Inside Deleuze's Classroom (with Charles J. Stivale)
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Apr 5, 2026 Charles J. Stavall, distinguished professor emeritus and co-director of the Deleuze Seminars Archive, guides listeners through Deleuze's crowded, experimental seminars. He describes the intense proximity of teacher and students, pedagogy as sensation and problem-finding, and how classroom debates and interruptions helped shape Deleuze's concepts.
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Deleuze's Packed Vincennes Seminars
- Gilles Deleuze taught at the experimental Vincennes university after May 1968, attracting massive, diverse crowds into cramped seminar rooms.
- Charles J. Stavall describes Deleuze refusing large amphitheaters, preferring intimate, lively seminars that became literally packed with students.
Philosophy As Taste And Sensation
- Deleuze demanded students 'feel' philosophy, linking intellectual understanding to taste and bodily sensation.
- Stavall notes Deleuze framed philosophical preference as goût, advising students to follow the thinker who suits their taste rather than force agreement.
Seminars Organized Around Problematics
- Deleuze structured seminars around problematics: pose a problem, develop concepts to address it, then move to the next problematic.
- Stavall traces this across the cinema seminars where concepts like movement image and time image evolve over successive years.
