Philosophy of the Image: The Gaze, The Screen, and the Scopic Drive
Amanda Holmes
Art Sciences and Art Education, Philosophy
2022W, scientific seminar (SEW), 4.0 ECTS, 2.0 semester hours, course number S04375
Description
This course will survey philosophical approaches to the questions of the image and the imaginary in the 20th century primarily through a consideration of cinema. We will begin with a reflection on the moving image and what Deleuze calls “the movement-image,” developing concepts along with Deleuze’s “production of concepts which are in resonance with the pictorial images of today or with cinematographic images.” We will then turn to a decidedly psychoanalytic analysis of cinema and develop a political use of psychoanalysis, focusing on how the operations of cinema reflect and reveal the structures of desire that are operative within subjectivity. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, we will interrogate fundamental questions about what it means to look, to see, and to watch. Finally, we will turn to Lacanian reflections on Alfred Hitchcock.
In addition to lectures and seminar discussions, throughout the semester we will also screen several key films. Please note that some meetings may run slightly longer than the officially scheduled time due to the variable screening times for the films.
Reading List
John Berger: About Looking and Ways of Seeing
Henri Bergson: Matter and Memory
Gilles Deleuze: Cinema Volumes
Sigmund Freud: “On Screen Memories”
bell hooks “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spactatorship”
Jaques Lacan: “The Mirror Stage” and sections from Seminar XI
Laura Mulvey: “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
Slavoj Žižek: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan but were Afraid to ask Hitchcock
List of Films (Subject to Expand and Change throughout the semester)
Robert Altman Nashville
John Cassavetes The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
Charlie Chaplin The Immigrant
Charlie Chaplin City Lights
D.W. Griffith Birth of a Nation
D.W. Griffith The Massacre
Eisenstein Battleship Potempkin
Mikhail Kalatozov Soy Cuba
Hitchcock Murder!
Hitchcock Rebecca
Hitchcock Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Hitchcock The Man Who Knew Too Much
Hitchcock Vertigo
Kurosawa The Seven Samurai
Scorsese Taxi Driver
Billy Wilder Sunset Boulevard
Examination Modalities
Students will be asked to write a final paper of 5-10 pages at the end of the semester. This paper should elaborate on one of the concepts developed in our collective study and should focus on at least one of the texts that we read together.
Key Words
Psychoanalysis, Lacan, Freud, Deleuze, film
Dates
20 October 2022, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
27 October 2022, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
03 November 2022, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
10 November 2022, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
17 November 2022, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
24 November 2022, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
01 December 2022, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
15 December 2022, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
12 January 2023, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
19 January 2023, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
26 January 2023, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
02 February 2023, 16:00–18:00 Seminar Room 20
Course Enrolment
From 01 September 2022, 09:00 to 30 November 2022, 23:59
Via online registration
Curriculum Allocation
co-registration: possible
Art Education: subject kkp (Bachelor): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis
Art Education: subject kkp (Bachelor): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: IT: Bachelorseminar Wissenschaftliche Praxis
Art Education: subject kkp (Master): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: Lehrveranstaltung nach Wahl aus wissenschaftlicher Praxis, SE
Art Education: subject kkp (Enhancements study): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: FOR: Seminar aus dem Bereich Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften
Art Education: subject kkp (Enhancements study): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis
Art Education: subject tex (Master): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: Lehrveranstaltung nach Wahl aus wissenschaftlicher Praxis, SE
Art Education: subject dae (Master): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: Lehrveranstaltung nach Wahl aus wissenschaftlicher Praxis, SE
Art Education: subject dex (Bachelor): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis
Art Education: subject dex (Bachelor): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: IT: Bachelorseminar Wissenschaftliche Praxis
Art Education: subject dex (Master): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: Lehrveranstaltung nach Wahl aus wissenschaftlicher Praxis, SE
Art Education: subject dex (Enhancements study): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: FOR: Seminar aus dem Bereich Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften
Art Education: subject dex (Enhancements study): Wissenschaftliche Praxis: FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis
TransArts - Transdisciplinary Arts (Bachelor): Theoretical foundations: Theoretical foundations
Expanded Museum Studies (Master): Electives: Philosophy
Stage Design (2. Section): Kunsttheorie und Kulturwissenschaften: Philosophie
Media Arts: Specialisation in Transmedia Arts (2. Section): Wissenschaft, Theorie und Geschichte : Philosophie
Media Arts: Specialisation in Digital Arts (2. Section): Wissenschaft, Theorie, Geschichte: Philosophie
Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften (Master): Electives Area 1: Philosophy
Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften (Master): Electives Area 2: Philosophy
Design: Specialisation in Graphics and Advertising (2. Section): Methodological and Theoretical Basics: Humanities
Conservation and Restoration (2. Section): Geisteswissenschaften: Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte
Fine Arts (2. Section): Scientific and Research Practice: Art Theory, Cultural Studies, Art History, Philosophy
Fine Arts (2. Section): Scientific and Research Practice: Free Electives out of Scientific and Research Practice
Design: Specialisation in Applied Photography and Time-based Media (2. Section): Methodological and Theoretical Basics: Humanities
Individual courses: possible