PHIL 381.001 – Philosophy and Film

Instructor: Alan Nelson. This course meets M 3:35 – 6:05 p.m. in CW 105.

An examination of philosophical issues in which the main texts are films. Our main topics are personal identity, self-knowledge, and romantic love. We will study films by Christopher Nolan, Stephen Soderbergh, Andrei Tarkovsky, Chantal Akerman, Akira Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Terry Gilliam. There will also be some shorter video and short supplementary readings.

We will do some screening in class, but students will need to screen all the films outside of class as well. Some of the films can be streamed, but the default in each case is to view them on campus at the Media Resources Center.

Prerequisite: 1 PHIL course.