los angeles
french theory
gilles deleuze and california
text by JOHN JEFFERSON SELVE
translation by PETER BEHRMAN DE SINETY
Gilles Deleuze boards the red-eye, the night flight from New York to Los Angeles. The philosopher’s eyes are already red and tired after an intense week of lectures and debates, with Félix Guattari and Michel Foucault at his side. It is 1975. At the initiative of Sylvère Lotringer, editor of the review Semiotext(e), New York has just held the first conference on schizoanalysis, created by the pair Deleuze-Guattari. The great French philosopher Gilles Deleuze is still barely known in the United States. French Theory, in 1975, is basically Jacques Derrida or Roland Barthes. The debates have been lively, tiring, captivating. And so, Gilles Deleuze is exhausted as the plane lifts off for California. But he appears to be happy. He attends a Patti Smith concert in Berkeley, goes to…