Terror and the Cinematic Sublime (6/01/10; MMLA 11/4-7, 2010)
Jean-Francois Lyotard writes, "We have paid a high enough price for the nostalgia of the whole [...] let us be witnesses to the unpresentable; let us activate the differences and save the honor of the name." How are "nostalgia" and the "whole" linked to terror and to the cinematic form? And how does film--if at all--confront the "unpresentable?" What is the "ethical" nature of this confrontation? Do death, birth, and God remain unpresentable today or have they also fallen prey to a nostalgic closure? Papers on the Coens, Christopher Nolan, Tarantino, Peter Weir, and less mainstream directors are of particular interest.