The Concept and its Environment

The neologism geo-philosophy, coined by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in What is Philosophy?, is not infrequently found associated with forms of thought, considered similar, that affix the prefix geo- to a given discipline, with the intention of making the earth a sort of gravitational attractor for reflection. Well-known examples of this are geopolitics and geo-economics, as well as geo-history and the more recent geo-law, the results of which, however, sometimes risk betraying their laudable premises. Browsing through a geohistory textbook, one might in fact be in danger of witnessing a domestication of thought, achieved by weakening that element that Deleuze and Guattari repeatedly define, well aware of the implications of the term, as revolutionary. One hundred years after the birth of the French philosopher, there is thus an urgent need to start again from the pages of What is Philosophy? in order to test the present and future of geophilosophy. It is not a matter, for the two authors, of thinking about the earth, as if the earth could or should be an object of thought, but of pursuing thought there where it is expressed in a Spinozian manner, namely in the paradoxical relationship between land and territory. The processes of deterritorialisation of the territory and reterritorialisation of the earth, made famous by A Thousand Planes, show that movement logically and ontologically precedes all its fixation, and that every fixation, if it is something, is not a figure but an encounter. It is an encounter that is anything but peaceful, difficult to think about because it is an outpost of what, exactly thirty years ago, Deleuze called ‘absolute immanence’: the impossible intersection between the absolute and the relative, between the plane of immanence and a relative social environment. For this reason, geophilosophy is not a textbook discipline, a kind of geography of philosophy or geographical philosophy, but first and foremost an instance of contestation, of resistance, to the principle of sufficient reason, which surreptitiously insinuates itself into every disciplinary sphere: geophilosophy learns from geography that ‘there is no good reason except the contingent, there is no universal history except that of contingency’ (QPh, p. 86). Thus, it is not a question of naturalising philosophy by locating a form of natural or historical necessity within it, but rather of restoring it to the movement, contingent and incessant, through which the infinite presents itself in the here and now, when ‘the earth passes into the pure plane of immanence of a thought-Being, of a thought-Nature of infinite diagrammatic movements’ (p. 81). Geophilosophy is the future of philosophy insofar as it is also its present and its past: the concepts produced are not objects, but rather territories, which poorly dwell in transcendence and need a plan. Thinking means drawing a plan of immanence, developing alliances with what, from time to time, is real, so as to create concepts for a land to come, for that future people we miss.

To mark the centenary of Gilles Deleuze’s birth, the Department of Humanities of the University of Palermo in collaboration with La Deleuziana has decided to dedicate the fourth edition of the Sicily Summer School in Environmental Humanities to geophilosophy as the pivotal theme of Deleuze and Guattari.
The Summer School is aimed at students and scholars interested in the theme and eager to share a valuable opportunity for discussion with some of its leading national and international experts in one of the most beautiful and significant landscapes and natural settings in the Mediterranean.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Tim Ingold (University of Aberdeen)
Paolo Vignola (University of Bergamo)
Sara Baranzoni (Pontifical University Antonianum)
Filippo Domenicali (University of Ferrara)

The Summer School is open to a maximum of 25 participants. Participation entitles the acquisition of 3 CFU for other educational activities. To participate you must submit an abstract of a maximum of 350 words. The deadline for applications is 18 March 2025. Publication on La Deleuziana (issue 18) will follow.

For further information:
Dr. Emilia Marra
Università del Salento
[email protected]

Dr. Francesca Sunseri
Università degli Studi di Palermo
[email protected]

Prof. Andrea Le Moli
Università degli Studi di Palermo
[email protected]

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