Deleuze and Landscapes

This seminar will closely read French philosopher Gilles Deleuze\’s (1925-1995) writings for their potential to provoke new thinking of landscape design and description. Deleuze develops ideas through biological and ecological models that engage conditions of time, movement, change, difference, and \’becoming\’ over \’being\’: \’the rhizome,\’ \’becoming-animal,\’ the \’Body Without Organs.\’As one of the most influential philosophers of the late 20th century, the work of Deleuze has been examined in the context of architectural criticism, yet remains to be fully explored in the context of landscape architecture, with which, as is posited here, it may have a great affinity. The premise of the seminar is that Deleuzian constructs are directly relevant to developing theories of landscape architecture design and its representational strategies.The seminar is organized around discussions of a series of both independent and interrelated topics selected from Deleuze\’s writings; these will be supplemented by additional readings of his sources. Every other week, we will critique selected Deleuzian philosophical topics in conjunction with an examination of existing landscapes, projects, and images in terms of the theoretical conclusions discussed in the readings. Students (independently or in pairs) will be asked to present these conceptual topics and landscape projects as part of the critique. Each student will prepare a final paper (approximately twenty pages double-spaced) that includes analysis of a Deleuzian concept (selected by the student and agreed upon with the instructor) and how it applies to an existing or potential landscape design.