Event

The Language of Cinema
John Mowitt , Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota
Gregory Flaxman , English, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

In the past, film scholars as well as philosophers have struggled to define the relationship between words and images, often with the result that the cinema has been read according to an overarching linguistic code. In this event, however, the speakers return to this traditional problem by renovating the concept of discourse as the means to describe the audio-visual image. While Flaxman will discuss discourse in terms of the development of a speaking cinema and what Gilles Deleuze has called the "civilization" of the cinema, Mowitt will elaborate a theory of discourse in order to address the development of postcolonial and global cinemas.

This event is co-presented with the Slought Foundation and will be introduced and moderated by Karen Beckman, Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Art History at the University of Pennsylvania. Presentations by Mowitt and Flaxman will precede the conversation.