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Robert Pippin (1948- ) is a major figure in contemporary philosophy, having published influential work on thinkers including Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. He is also an original thinker about - and critic of - film who has written books and numerous articles on canonical subjects such as the Western, Film Noir, and Hitchcock's
Vertigo.
In
Robert Pippin and Film, Dominic Lash demonstrates the ways that film has been crucial to Pippin's thought on important philosophical topics such as political psychology, ethics, and self-knowledge. He also explores the implications of Pippin's methodological commitments to clear language and to maintaining close contact with the details of the films in question. In so doing, Lash brings Pippin's work on film to a wider audience and contributes to current debates both within film studies and beyond. This includes those concerning the relationships between film and philosophy, criticism and aesthetics, and individual subjectivity and political consciousness.
Lash focuses on Pippin's major works on film -
Hollywood Westerns and American Myth (2010),
Fatalism in American Film Noir (2012),
The Philosophical Hitchcock (2017), and
Filmed Thought (2020) as well as his many shorter writings on film.
List of contents
Series Editors' Introduction
Introduction: "I'm Just Trying to Understand the Damn Film"
1. The Subject after Modernism and the Value of Film for Philosophy
2. What Do We Call Politics?
3. Do We Know What We're Doing? Pippin on Agency
4. Film as Practical Psychology
5. Pippin and Film Studies
Conclusion: On the Impossibility of Pippinian Film-Philosophy
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Dominic Lash is Associate Teacher in the Department of Film at the University of Bristol, UK. He is the author of The Cinema of Disorientation: Inviting Confusions (2020) and his work has been published in journals such as Screen, Cinergie and Movie.
Summary
Robert Pippin (1948- ) is a major figure in contemporary philosophy, having published influential work on thinkers including Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. He is also an original thinker about – and critic of – film who has written books and numerous articles on canonical subjects such as the Western, Film Noir, and Hitchcock's Vertigo.
In Robert Pippin and Film, Dominic Lash demonstrates the ways that film has been crucial to Pippin's thought on important philosophical topics such as political psychology, ethics, and self-knowledge. He also explores the implications of Pippin's methodological commitments to clear language and to maintaining close contact with the details of the films in question. In so doing, Lash brings Pippin's work on film to a wider audience and contributes to current debates both within film studies and beyond. This includes those concerning the relationships between film and philosophy, criticism and aesthetics, and individual subjectivity and political consciousness.
Lash focuses on Pippin's major works on film – Hollywood Westerns and American Myth (2010), Fatalism in American Film Noir (2012), The Philosophical Hitchcock (2017), and Filmed Thought (2020) as well as his many shorter writings on film.
Foreword
Critically engages with the work of the contemporary American philosopher Robert Pippin, exploring how films have shaped his thought and articulating its value for film studies.
Additional text
In Robert Pippin and Film, Dominic Lash provides provides a welcome and astute account of this philosopher and critic of cinema. Moving adroitly between careful analyses of the films Pippin discusses and the broader philosophical project that underlies his method, Lash not only shows why Pippin matters for film studies but continues the project to show how it can have new and greater relevance. This is a book that is more than a study of a philosopher of film; it is itself a compelling story about how philosophy and film might go together.
