Progressive Geographies

Deleuze seminars to be translated by Daniel Smith. Full report here (via Graham Harman).

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A Purdue University professor of philosophy has a received $175,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to translate the seminar lectures of a noted French philosopher and make them available online.

Daniel Smith, a professor of philosophy, is focusing on the work of Gilles Deleuze, who lived 1925-95. He authored more than 25 books and taught for many years at the University of Paris 8.

“Deleuze is widely recognized as one of the most influential and important French philosophers of the second half of the 20th century,” Smith said. “He is one of the most cited authors in the humanities, and several of his books, such as ‘Nietzsche and Philosophy’ and ‘Difference and Repetition,’ have become classics in their fields.”

Smith and his team will translate several of the seminar lectures that Deleuze gave at the University of Paris 8 from 1979-87. Large crowds attended the seminars, and students’ recordings of his lectures were eventually archived by the National Library of France.

“The translations will be a great benefit to English-speaking scholars in the humanities,” Smith said. “Since there is much material in the lectures that finds no parallel in Deleuze’s published works.”