Questions for Week 5 ★May 12th Group Discussion Session

Hello all,

It would be great if you could engage the readings with these questions in mind. Again, I am not the big parent of the seminar family; I hope each of us could play the role of parent /host (updating to be continued)

1. Bogue, Ronald. (2005). “The Minor.” In Gilles Deleuze : Key Concepts, edited by Charles J. Stivale, 110–20. Durham, GB: Acumen.

Why I would choose this article?

‘Minor’ would be key to understanding and analyzing political cinema (in Deleuzian sense). Although we have encountered the idea of ‘minor cinema’ last semester (in the case study of Pema Tseden’s Tibetan cinema), it would be necessary to go back to its origin with D&G’s conceptualization of Kafka (through a second-hand interpretative text though).  This ‘key concept’ text also links up to other texts to be read in this session.

1) In which manner does the Kafka example fit into the ‘characteristics’ of minor literature of D&G? After exploring the basic ideas, the author returns to ‘rephrase’ the tripartite definition (p114).

2) If you read through other texts, to ‘deterritorialize’ (deterritorialization) and to ‘reterritorialize’ (reterritorialization) would be crucial concepts/dynamics to pin down the ‘politics’ of D&G/D’s project.

In this specific explanation of minor literature, how to understand the ‘deterritorialization’ of language? How about the process of ‘reterritorialization’ then? How could us grasp the power relation and therefore the political significance with regards to the aforementioned processes when discussing minor literature (and minor writers’ creative works)?

3) Therefore, how to reconsider the minor/minority?

4) How would the ‘collective assemblage of enunciation’ intervene the given power relations?

5) How would the idea of ‘minor’ in minor literature connect to D’s discussion of political cinema (also see Pisters)? Do you recall anything in relation to Third Cinema?

2a. Martin-Jones, D. (2006). “History”, Deleuze, Cinema and National Identity: Narrative Time in National Contexts. Edinburgh University Press. pp.19-49.

Why I would choose this article?

The idea of ‘time’ closely relates to the conceptualisation of politics according to D&G or D; it opens up a whole new horizon for us to understand the world (possibly!).  Fortunately we are reading this secondary-interpretation by Martin-Jones (M-J), who admirably demonstrates how to engage with D’s highly challenging framework of ‘time’  for an analysis of contemporary film works, and to rethink history and national identity.

1)    How does M-J frame and explain ‘movement-image’, ‘action-image’ in relation to the classical narrative (with an example of Tom Cruise)?

 

2)    How does D envision the model of time in Cinema 2? How should we grasp the ‘actual’ and the ‘virtual’ within such a model? Then how does it connect to our understanding of the ‘molar’ and the ‘molecular’?

How would these conceptualizations help us to understand ‘movement-image’ and in particular, the ‘time-image’? How to understand D’s phrase that ‘This is a cinema of the seer and no longer of the agent’?

    

3)    Pisters would also talk about the ‘plane of immanence’, but how has M-J reworked the idea of  ‘plane of immanence’? Why would the previously discussed ‘deterritorialization’ (‘ungrounding’ force) matter here? Why would the discussion here relate to a new understanding of ‘movement-image’ or ‘time-image’?

4)    Given the discussions on a new understanding of ‘movement-image’ vis-à-vis ‘time-image’, how to approach the construction of past according to M-J?

5)    How do D&G envision subject, as in relation to the ‘crystal of time’ and ‘becoming-other’, and how to understand the assumption within such a context that ‘in the time-image subjectivity is multi-facted, or crystalline’? How would you see here, the radical possibility of the ‘ungrounding’?

6)    How would the above discussions illuminate our understanding of ‘national identity’? (re Anderson/Bhabha/Butler). How should we rethink the ‘ungrounding potential of the labyrinth of time’ here? How could we grasp the processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization here? How about minor, minor cinema again?

2b. Martin-Jones, D.  (2011) “Introduction: Deterritorializing Deleuze.” Deleuze and World Cinemas. London: Continuum, 1–20.

1)    How does M-J frame ‘world cinemas’ in his application of Deleuzian film theory? In which manner would Deleuze contribute to our understanding of world cinemas?

2)    How has M-J envision the significance of the intersection of Deleuze studies and film studies?

3)    Why would Deleuze’s thinking allow us to ‘think beyond Eurocentrism’, but then, how would the task of ‘deterritorializing Deleuze’ could be conducted and become possible? Why would the framing of globalization become important in applying the Deleuze thinking?

4)    How would M-J’s critique of Cinema books help you to rethink discussions in other texts?

3. Pisters, Patricia. (2003). “Introduction” & “Cinema’s Politics of Violence”. The Matrix Of Visual Culture: Working With Deleuze In Film Theory. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. pp.1-13 & 77-105

Why I would choose this article?

Pisters is the must-read for anyone who wants to use D/D&G’s thinking in their study of cinema. It would be very important to bear in mind that, Pisters uses examples from not only films, but also other genres of visual productions; her examples include both minor films, and commercial productions. She offers you an effective array of analytical tools and concepts.

INTRODUCTION

1)    Overall, how would Deleuzian film theory differ from the traditional film theory? How would the framework of ‘representation’ differ from the possibility offered by the rhizomatic thinking?

2)    With what we get from M-J 2a, it is less daunting to approach Pisters. How to pin down the idea of ‘camera consciousness’ according to Pisters (referring back to what we have studied with M-J about time) ?

3)    Again, how to grasp, and better understand ‘plane of immanence’ according to Pisters? 

Chapter 3 (see Appendix A & B)----- PLS FOCUS MORE ON CONTENTS FROM PAGE 90-95

1)    How does classical political film differ from the model political film? How does it relate to our previous discussions of the minor? How does the mentioning of Third World cinema here remind of our previous look at Third Cinema?

2)     How does the power of the false or ‘fabulation’ relate to the ‘constitution of a people’ (p92)? What is the politics here?