Philosophy Program Presents
"Fantasies of Action in Contemporary Movies"
Monday, February 22, 2016
Olin Humanities, Room 201
4:45 pm EST/GMT-5
4:45 pm EST/GMT-5
Daniel Wack
Associate Professor of Philosophy,
Knox College
This talk begins from a central but neglected insight of Stanley Cavell's: that the end of the 1960s marked a fundamental turning point in the history of Hollywood movies, which involved a series of complimentary transformations in their content, production, and consumption. Building on Cavell's work, I seek to illuminate one key aspect of this shift by arguing that, in recent Hollywood movies, the possibility of successful action characteristically appears as a fantasy: either movie protagonists must learn to accept disillusionment and reject the pursuit of meaningful agency as an illusion, or they inhabit a world in which successful action is possible, but this world is explicitly not ours.Associate Professor of Philosophy,
Knox College
For more information, call 845-758-7280, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 4:45 pm EST/GMT-5
Location: Olin Humanities, Room 201