Visiting Researcher Seminar
Professor KAFFEN, Philip
Reflexivity and the Post-Medium Condition（10/18）
Details
Reflexivity—the capacity for cinema to address itself or the world beyond its diegesis—has long been a crucial aspect of film theory and a contested practice in film-making.
Loosely, it implies agesture of “looking back,” in a way that assumes distinction between a reflecting subject and an other“self” as an object of reflection, as well as a temporal and spatial remove.
More, by providing a visualrepresentation of the act of philosophical reflection or critical thinking that scholars could elaborate, this gesture helped cement cinema studies as a serious intellectual endeavor in the humanities.
Yet, today, much critical writing on cinema emphasizes affect over reflection, even if not explicitly.
Further, the autonomy of both work and viewer once assumed is also dispersed, a process compounded by the nature of cinematic production today within a transmedia world of franchising, platforms, digital technologies, virtual life-forms, and other image making practices. However, such expressions of ‘post-cinema’ and media are rife with what could easily be identified as reflexive elements, and arguably require them.
If so, however, and this reflexivity is no longer tied to autonomy or medium specificity, the exact role of this reflexivity has been left open and uninterrogated. Is there then a need for a new theory of cinematic reflection? If so, to what end?
Speaker
KAFFEN, Philip (Associate Professor, University of North Carolina, Charlotte)
Date & Time
Oct 18, 2024 (Fri.) 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Venue
Building#19 3F Room#315, Waseda Campus, Waseda University
Language
English
Prospected Audience
Undergraduate, Graduate, Researchers, Faculty members, general audience
Organizer
Waseda Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS)
Registration
Registration is not required to participate.
