Sylabus przedmiotu

Contemporary philosophers have been looking closely at popular culture in the past couple of decades; in part to ask questions about its nature that have been overlooked or ignored by cultural studies scholars. For instance, philosophers are interested to what extent popular film or even videogames can be considered art, and what it is about their essence that might lead to such an evaluation. Most of the discussion has pertained to film and that will be the focus of the course. The course will begin with a brief presentation of this general discussion, before looking at specific film narratives and the questions they raise. At times, film narrative either imitates or questions reality. Some of these questions can be framed in philosophical terms, and instances of these will be discussed on the basis of film material and critical texts that examine them. To the extent that the narratives imitate human reality, they not infrequently provoke the primary question at the base of moral philosophy and ethics: how to live. The main textbook for the course and most of the film material discussed will examine this question in particular.

• ćwiczenia przedmiotowe
• dyskusja dydaktyczna
• film
• klasyczna metoda problemowa
• konsultacje
• metoda przewodniego tekstu
• objaśnienie lub wyjaśnienie
• prelekcja
• wykład konwersatoryjny

Various philosophical problems connected with film witll be presented and discussed, such as: the essence of film and its evaluation (e.g. medium specificity), how film raises or illustrates fundamental philosophical problems (e.g. epistomology). The primary topics will concern ethical isues raised by film in light of contemporary fields of ethical inquiry: bioethics, the feminist ethics of care, and communication ethics.

• obecność na zajęciach
• praca semestralna
• referat

Students will receive their semester mark through their active participation and class essay at the end of the sememster (the deadline for handing in the essay is the first class after the Christmas / New Year break). In order to write the essay, students will select a film (if they are in a film seminar, one of the films they are analysing) and analyze it using one or more ethical categories from Wanda Teas Seeing the Light. They can also use appropriate additional secondary literature, either from that listed above or from a source they find independently. Students will use MLA internal documentation with a reference list at the end of the essay (for online support, see Purdue OWL, MLA citation). The essay will be from 650 to 800 words (one-and-a-half or double spaced), hard copy (i.e. printed).

Primary:

Wanda Teays,Seeing the Light: Exploring Ethics through Movies, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. (available at philology library reading room)

Secondary:

Noel Carroll,The Philosophy of Motion Pictures, Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.

Joseph Kupfer, Feminist Ethics in Film: Reconfiguring Care through Cinema, Intellect Books 2012.

Sandra Shapshay, ed., Bioethics at the Movies, Johns Hopkins UP, 2008.

Film-Philosophy (international online academic journal dedicated to philosophically reviewing film studies, philosophical aesthetics and world cinema)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web