Sylvere Lotringer, intellectual who infused US art circles with French theory, dies at 83

In November of 1975, a French literary scholar at Columbia University by the name of Sylvere Lotringer, along with a student, John Rajchman, organized a four-day colloquium that was intended to bring together a wave of avant-garde French theorists with various representatives of downtown New York City demimondes — presumably to discuss themes related to “prisons and madness.”

But “Schizo-Culture,” as the conference was titled, didn’t go quite as planned.

Early on, the narrow literary theme was scrapped in favor of what writer and researcher David Morris later described as “a delirious post-sixties intellectual free-for-all.” French philosopher Michel Foucault prepared a paper about repression; Gilles Deleuze was slated for a session about the interpretation of signs. Also on board was experimental composer John Cage, who was to deliver a chance-generated piece titled “Empty Words.”

It remained delightfully eggheaded until the Village Voice featured the colloquium as its “pick of the week” and more than 2,000 people descended on Columbia for the event. Fights broke out. Panelists attacked each other. During Foucault’s presentation, an attendee stood up and accused him of being a paid agent of the CIA. (He was not.) Felix Guattari, another