Six Thinkers · Deleuze · Lesson 01

Course intro — coming soon

Overview of the upcoming Deleuze course.

A six-post short course for The Kiwi Dialectic

This package is written for readers who want theory that can do some work. The goal is not to make Deleuze digestible for its own sake — it is to give educators, artists, and organisers tools that help them think differently about learning, power, and practice.

In this series

Why introduce Gilles Deleuze now?
Gramsci and the fight over common sense
Paulo Freire and the pedagogy of liberation
Graeber, Bakunin, and Kropotkin on organisation
Deleuze, art, and the classroom as experiment
Building a campaign pedagogy for educators and tamariki

1. Why introduce Gilles Deleuze now?

Gilles Deleuze was one of the major philosophers of the twentieth century, and his work on difference, becoming, and experimentation has been taken up in education, the arts, and political theory. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a comprehensive overview of his key concepts and influences.

In educational writing influenced by Deleuze, learning is not treated as the simple recognition of pre-existing categories but as the production of something new — a process of becoming rather than arriving. Research published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education explores how this reframes what we ask of students and teachers.

That matters in a period where schools, arts institutions, and unions are pressured to measure everything against fixed outcomes. A Deleuzian approach asks instead what a learner or organisation is capable of becoming. This tension is examined in Educational Philosophy and Theory.

Key takeaway: Deleuze helps explain how thought escapes institutional scripts without pretending institutions do not matter.

Lesson recipe

Objective: Introduce Deleuze as a thinker of experimentation and relation rather than static identity. (University of Edinburgh Learning and Leadership blog)

Materials: Whiteboard, scrap paper, one artwork or image per group.

Method: Ask: what does schooling usually reward — recognition or invention? Then have groups analyse an artwork not for what it represents but for what it does — what feeling, question, or movement it produces. Compare responses across groups. See also: Working conceptually with Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy in relation to children's artwork.

Transfer: Rewrite one assessment, workshop, or arts prompt so it rewards experimentation rather than reproduction of a known form.

Source links

2. Gramsci and the fight over common sense

Antonio Gramsci's account of hegemony shows that ruling power in advanced capitalist societies works not only through force but through the manufacturing of consent — through shaping what people take to be natural, normal, and inevitable. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a thorough treatment of his concepts.

That makes education central, because schools and public debate help decide what counts as normal, who counts as an expert, and which demands are treated as reasonable. This connects directly to Freirean critical pedagogy, as the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Freire makes clear.

For campaign work, this means a union or arts organisation does not just chase policy wins; it also contests the assumptions that make certain policies seem inevitable. Research in Critical Education examines how Gramscian analysis applies to contemporary educational movements.

Key takeaway: If movements do not contest common sense, they enter every struggle already losing ground.

Lesson recipe

Objective: Show how "common sense" is socially made and politically contested. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Gramsci)

Materials: News headlines, policy documents, coloured pens, sticky notes.

Method: Highlight repeated words in media and policy language, then ask whose interests those assumptions serve and which alternatives they foreclose. Map the terrain of consent before proposing counter-narratives. (See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Gramsci)

Transfer: Create a hegemony audit for one institution, campaign, or arts programme.

Source links

3. Paulo Freire and the pedagogy of liberation

Paulo Freire's educational philosophy centres dialogue, critical consciousness, and the rejection of what he called banking education — the passive depositing of information into learners treated as empty vessels. His approach is examined in detail in Profound Love and Dialogue: Paulo Freire and Liberation Pedagogy.

Freire's contrast between banking education and problem-posing education remains useful because it reframes the teacher-learner relationship as one of mutual inquiry. A useful introduction is available on YouTube, and the underlying theory is elaborated in PMC.

That is why Freire matters for union organisers and artists as much as for teachers: the work is to build the capacity for people to name, analyse, and act on the world together. This is explored in the Maths — No Problem! overview of Freire's critical pedagogy.

Key takeaway: A campaign that does not teach people to read the world critically will struggle to change it.

Lesson recipe

Objective: Practise problem-posing pedagogy instead of one-way instruction. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Freire)

Materials: One local issue, paper, pens, a space for group discussion.

Method: Turn statements into questions: who benefits, who pays, what assumptions hold the issue in place, and what would need to change for things to be different? Use the introductory video and the Maths — No Problem! overview as prompts.

Transfer: Convert one lecture, staff briefing, or arts workshop into a dialogue-based inquiry session.

Source links

4. Graeber, Bakunin, and Kropotkin on organisation

David Graeber's writing on direct action links democracy to the capacity of people to act through their own initiative rather than waiting for authorisation from above. His argument is laid out in Direct Action, Anarchism, Direct Democracy.

Bakunin's anti-authoritarian warning and Kropotkin's emphasis on mutual aid sit inside the broader anarchist tradition examined in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Anarchism. Together they challenge the assumption that effective organisation requires hierarchy.

Taken together, these thinkers are useful for educational leadership because they show that structure is not the same as domination, and coordination is not the same as control. The Critical Education article on Graeber, democracy, and social studies curriculum shows how this applies in practice.

Key takeaway: Radical organisation is not chaos; it is coordination built without domination.

Lesson recipe

Objective: Distinguish leadership from domination and coordination from bureaucracy. (Direct Action, Anarchism, Direct Democracy)

Materials: Sticky notes, butcher paper, a campaign or team process to analyse.

Method: Map how decisions currently get made, mark bottlenecks and gatekeepers, then redesign the process using principles of direct democracy and mutual accountability. Draw on the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Anarchism for conceptual grounding.

Transfer: Draft a one-page decision-making protocol for a staff team, classroom collective, or arts organisation.

Source links

5. Deleuze, art, and the classroom as experiment

Work in philosophy of education and arts education has drawn on Deleuze and Guattari to challenge representation as the primary goal of both art-making and teaching. Research on genuine movement learning through a Deleuzian approach shows what this looks like in practice.

That shift matters because it treats art not merely as expression and learning not merely as mastery of content, but as encounters that force thought into new configurations. A pedagogy of generosity explores how Deleuze and Guattari's thought applies to contemporary education.

For educators under pressure to standardise everything, the Deleuzian move is simple and provocative: treat the classroom as a site of experimentation rather than reproduction. This is developed in the University of Edinburgh Learning and Leadership blog.

Key takeaway: Art can move thought where policy language gets stuck.

Lesson recipe

Objective: Use artistic experimentation to disrupt rigid learning habits. (Working conceptually with Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy in relation to children's artwork)

Materials: Found objects, paper, markers, collage material, music if useful.

Method: Give a prompt with no single correct answer, ban literal illustration for the first round, then discuss what emerged and what it suggests about how participants usually learn. Draw on the Edinburgh blog for facilitation ideas.

Transfer: Design one low-cost arts activity that helps participants analyse power without beginning from abstract theory.

Source links

6. Building a campaign pedagogy for educators and tamariki

Read through our courses — Gramsci, Freire, Deleuze, Graeber, Bakunin, and Kropotkin (to be added) — and you will find a shared thread: power is reproduced through learning, and it can be contested through learning. The Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Deleuze provides the philosophical framework that ties the series together.

For educators and tamariki, the point is not simply better messaging, but new forms of learning and organising that practise the democracy they are arguing for. The research on Freire and liberation pedagogy makes this concrete.

Key takeaway: Effective campaigns do not just communicate; they teach people how to govern struggle together.

Lesson recipe

Objective: Build a campaign pedagogy that links union growth, political education, and practical action. (Critical Education)

Materials: Campaign brief, stakeholder map, timeline template, evaluation sheet.

Method: Choose one live issue, map the dominant story and leverage points, then build a six-session cycle that moves from analysis to action to reflection. Use the Direct Action framework to structure decision-making within the campaign team.

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