Since Alex's is the only prospectus scheduled for Monday 12/1, I’ve added a reading assignment:
Gilles Deleuze, “The Fold,” Yale French Studies, no. 80 (1991), pp. 227-247—JSTOR:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2930269
This is a translation of a couple of selections from a short book of the same title. In it, Deleuze tries to pull together a number of Leibniz’s metaphors and make connections with the culture of his era (i.e., the baroque) in a way that is summarized in the last few pages of the second selection.
Early in the first selection, Deleuze refers to a passage in Leibniz’s New Essays that he seems to have in mind in much of his discussion there.
Philalethes. “The understanding bears not a little resemblance to a room wholly dark, which has only certain small openings to let in from outside exterior and visible images, so that if these images, coming to be painted in this dark room, could remain there and be placed in order, so that they could be found upon occasion, there would be a great resemblance between this room and the human understanding.” [Locke, An Essay on Human Understanding bk. II, ch. XI, §17—a re-translation of the French translation, by Coste, that Leibniz used.]
Theophilus. To make the resemblance greater, you should suppose that in this room there was a canvas to receive the images, not even, but diversified by folds, representing the (kinds of) innate knowledge; further, that this canvas or membrane being stretched would have a kind of elasticity or power of action, and also an action and reaction accommodated as much to the past folds as to the newly arrived kinds of impressions. And this action would consist in certain vibrations or oscillations, such as are seen in a stretched string so touched that it gives forth a kind of musical sound. For not only do we receive images or outlines in the brain; but we form besides new ones, when we look at complex ideas. Thus the canvas that represents our brain is necessarily active and elastic. This comparison would explain tolerably well what passes in the brain; but as for the soul, which is a simple substance or monad, it represents without extension these same varieties of extended masses and perceives them.
From: G. W. Leibniz, New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, A. G. Langley, tr. (New York: Macmillan, 1896), p. 147. (The speeches of the character Philalethes are largely formed of quotations from Locke, with those of Theophilus providing Leibniz’s comments on these passages.)
Deleuze makes a number of references to art both in Leibiniz's time and since. Many of these are self-explanatory, but I'll add a few links and explanatory information.
Much of the older art Leibniz refers to can be found on ARTstor. In the case of the “Studiolo in Florence” mentioned on p. 233, what I think he has in mind is the Studiolo of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio. (The Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studiolo_of_Francesco_I
gives a good description, but the images on ARTstor are better.)
One of the El Greco paintings mentioned p. 242 is not on ARTstor (though one like it in Toledo OH is); here's a link to an image of the one Deleuze refers to:
click on the image for a larger version—or go to the main address http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk and search on “Greco agony”).
Deleuze’s references to recent art can be a little more obscure. There are several references to Simon Hantaï, a painter who used folded canvas as a technique. You can find an overview of his work with samples of the two series of paintings Deleuze mentions on p. 244 here:
http://paulrodgers9w.com/BlogEntries/File/Folding_Method(1).pdf
And here are some images of sculptures by two people Deleuze mentions in passing on p. 246: Christian Renonciat
http://www.gremillion.com/html/art_sculpt.html
(click on his name for a pop-up and on the down-pointing triangle for more images--and notice that these are all wood sculptures)—and Georges Jeanclos-Mossé
http://www.franklloyd.com/dynamic/artist.asp?ArtistID=10
(click on the images for larger versions).