Deleuze2008: About the conference

In 2008 Stavanger, Norway, is the European Capital of Culture, alongside Liverpool, England.

The Stavanger2008 vision is expressed through the concept ‘Open Port’. Open Port – openness towards the world - is about the challenge to be open and inclusive towards others, art, ideas and opportunities.

Deleuze2008 will take this challenge - litterally. One of the main aims of the conference is just to explore the idea of openness. More precisely, as Openness can be said to be such a vital concept in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (1925-95), the idea is to explore Deleuze in the Open.

The conference will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of Difference and Repetition. Starting off from this seminal work, the conference will meander through various aspects of the Open. Thus the vision of Stavanger2008 will be thematized – deleuziastically.

The concepts of difference and repetition can be said to contain the ontology of Deleuze. In this ontology, what there is is ungrounded for the sake of an open future where eternally only that returns which is yet to come. The condition of the new is the repetition, obviously not of the past – which would only mean that back again came just the Same (which is the nightmare keeping all children in their right minds wide awake) –, but of difference. Thus ontologically Openness is the return of the yet to come.

Held on November 7th and 8th, the conference will touch upon these aspects of the Open:

Metaphysics
The conference aims to explore the concept of the open-ended becoming of the world. As we here are dealing with the highest or most basic determinations of reality, it is natural also that the conference touches upon the question of God and religiosity.

Science
Does the metaphysical position of Deleuze represent a challenge to the sciences and/or vice versa?

Ethics/politics
In contradistinction to other directions in modern ethics, metaphysics has a role to play in the ethics – and politics – of Deleuze. Immanent ethics is likely to oppose both micro- and macroreductionism, and thus to break with the simpleminded focus on either actor or community.

Sensation
Ethics raise the question of how to live. Art give us examples of answers to that question. In art the Open is put to action, thus leading the sensationist to metaphysics...