The School of History and Philosophy @ UNSW presents Robert Sinnerbrink (Macquarie University)
Re-enfranchising Film: Towards a Romantic Film-Philosophy Abstract: A number of philosophers and film theorists have united recently in their criticisms of philosophically reductionistic approaches to film. Simon Critchley, Stephen Mulhall, and Daniel Frampton, for example, all champion pluralistic, non-reductionistic ways of thinking through the film-philosophy relationship. Nonetheless, the temptation to disenfranchise film—reducing it to an inferior way of knowing or subsuming it within a received conceptual framework—continues to haunt many contemporary philosophical approaches. Fortunately, however, there are also various styles of philosophising on and with film that attempt to overcome this disenfranchisement. This alternative approach, which I call “romantic film-philosophy”, is distinguished by its questioning of the assumption that conceptual theorisation should be privileged over cinematic aesthetics. Romantic film-philosophy responds to film as a way of thinking, one that might even be understood as distinctively cinematic. In what follows, I argue that this romantic approach to film-philosophy—which takes film to be capable of the aesthetic disclosure of novel aspects of modern experience—provides a salutary way of overcoming the philosophical disenfranchisement of film. It attempts to do justice to the complexity of the film-philosophy relationship, allowing film to be philosophically self-reflective, while opening up the possibility that philosophy might be transformed through its encounter with film. Robert Sinnerbrink lectures in the Department of Philosophy at the Macquarie University. He is the author of Understanding Hegelianism (Acumen, 2007) and co-editor of Critique Today (Brill, 2006) and Recognition, Work, Politics: New Directions in French Critical Theory (Brill, 2007). His research spans Continental Philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of film, critical theory, romanticism, Heidegger, and political philosophy, and he is currently writing a book entitled New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images (Continuum, forthcoming in 2011). When? Tuesday 1 June, 1 p.m. Where? Room 308B, Morven Brown Building, University of New South Wales A light lunch is provided. No bookings are required, and all are welcome. For further information, please contact Joanne Faulkner, [email protected], 9385 2287. Dr. Joanne Faulkner ARC Research Fellow School of History and Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Room 338, Morven Brown Building University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW 2052 Australia [email protected] +61 2 9385 2287 http://hist-phil.arts.unsw.edu.au/staff-search/joanne-faulkner-633.html Treasurer, Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy: http://www.ascp.org.au_______________________________________________ SydPhil mailing list: http://sydphil.info 950 subscribers now served. To UNSUBSCRIBE, change your MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS, find ANSWERS TO COMMON PROBLEMS, or visit our ONLINE ARCHIVES, please go to the LIST INFORMATION PAGE: http://sydphil.info
