PLAYFUL INTERRUPTIONS IN RECENT FILM (6/1/2011; MMLA, 11/3-6/2011)
In Jean-Luc Nancy's The Inoperative Community representations are not just works of art (oeuvre); they also, in fact, work. Representations present "community" and thereby give a disparate group of beings an identity, borders, and a body. If representations work, what happens when a work founders, when it falls apart, and opens onto something else? Would this opening then be the place or space of play, even serious play? What does this "absence of work" look like formally? What are the ethical consequences of such playful interruptions? Papers on non-mainstream directors are of particular interest.