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March 08, 2007
Just an update
Categories: Personal
I haven't post much in the way of substantial personal stuff to the blog in the past couple of weeks. I've got lots going on at work and with getting ready for the arrival of BGP. I was sick last week -- from 9:00 PM Monday until 9:00 AM Wednesday I slept 24 hours. And, last weekend I had a full-fledged meltdown/freakout about my impending fatherhood that prompted a very large "discussion" between my wife and I that resulted in what I call,without hyperbole, a breakthrough and generally led to both of us feeling better about everything. There was just lots of unspoken stress and worry that needed to be put out there and dealt with. We did, and now we're better for it.
So, what am I up to now? Spring Break is next week, so I am trying to clear my desk as best as I can so I can have a couple of days off. Our College Station friends Laura and David are coming to visit; I'm looking forward to hanging out with them. Next weekend is the Philosophy of Education Society meeting in Atlanta. I am on a panel that's discussing philosophy of education and film.
My original contribution to the panel was going to be a discussion of the films Before Sunrise and Before Sunset in relation to Dewey's aesthetics. But a reviewer of our proposal asked "Why is this sort of thing even necessary? What are you trying to contribute?" and suggested our panel may be philosophically "light." I think those are good questions, so I have divereted my paper to trying to answer them. In order to do that, I have undertaken a crash course in film theory. Texts on the basics of film theory have occupied my reading time over the past few days (the No TV rule has helped me out here). Most of the film theory is rooted in semiotics, Marxism, and Lacanian physchoanalysis (and Continental philosophy more generally). Thus, it treats film as a medium that seeks to promote certain ideologies to the unwitting spectator. The job of film theory is to interpret and critique all that. I am not sold on all the film theory stuff for a variety of reasons which I am still struggling to articulate fully. In the meantime, I am trying to touch on the following questions in my presentation:
1. What does film (as text) offer that traditional philosphical texts don't? (One of the reviewer's questions was something like: "Why do I need to watch Before Sunrise to explore Dewey's aesethics? Why can't I just read Dewey?")
2. Is there a lens for the interpretation of film that isn't based on those vocabularies of film theory that is still critical and helpful? That is, is film always about ideology (and class, race, gender -- culture)?
3. Can film as text supply vocabularies for the interpretation of other texts and/or experience? (It's clear that film is a text that can be interpreted using a variety of existing vocabularies. That's what most film theory does; it critiques film using the vocabularies of cultural theory, semiotics, etc. I just wonder if the converse is tue, and if so, how).
4. What/how much/does pedagogy matter in all this? What are the pedagogical advantages of using film to explore philosophical or other academic vocabularies with students? What are the disadvantages?
These are the things I am thinking about on a Thursday morning before spring break.
Posted by Nakia at March 8, 2007 09:23 AM