About this Event
As well as being friends and contemporaries, G.E.M. (Elizabeth) Anscombe (1919-2001), Philippa Foot (1920-2010), Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) and Mary Midgley (1919-2018) were four of the most important philosophers of the 20th Century. Despite many lively explorations of the intersections between film and philosophy, and the fact that many of the areas worked on by these philosophers (including ethics, metaphysics, and the relation between humans and animals) have been the topic of lively debate, the work of Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch has, to date, had little impact within film studies. This symposium represents a first attempt to remedy this situation. Drawing on specialist research but accessible to a general audience, it will include papers engaging with each of these philosophers’ work, showing various ways that it might help develop our understanding of film. There will also be opportunities for more general discussion, exploring the resonances between various avenues of inquiry that will open up.
In their book Metaphysical Animals (2022), Claire Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman write that Anscombe, Foot, Murdoch, and Midgley ‘learnt to see philosophy as ... an ancient form of human enquiry, kept alive through thousands of years of conversation’. (p. xi) Filming Metaphysical Animals aims, in its small way, to help continue those ‘thousands of years of conversation’.
Filming Metaphysical Animals is organised by Dominic Lash, Associate Lecturer in Film at ARU.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the British Association of Film, Television, and Screen Studies, which has helped to make this event possible.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
ARU Cambridge, East Road, Cambridge, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00