The 2nd Philosophy of Film Without Theory Conference took place at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, USA on the 21st and 22nd October, 2023.
Conference Directors were Katheryn Doran (Hamilton College), Craig Fox (PennWest University) and Britt Harrison (Independent).
There were 53 registered delegates, 9 plenary talks, 8 talks given in parallel sessions, and the participants came from USA, UK, Australia, Spain, Croatia, Chile, and the Netherlands. A pre-conference short-film screening and discussion was curated and hosted by Scott MacDonald (Hamilton).
The conference was funded by Hamilton College Philosophy Department and the Chauncy S. Truax Hamilton Class of 1875 Memorial Fund.
Plenary presentations:
Everyday Catastrophes in Late Spring and Tokyo Story – John Gibson (University of Louisville)
Continuing the Conversation: On the Ethics of Bad Protagonists, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, & Better Call Saul – Iris Vidmar Jovanović (University of Rijeka)
Out of Everywhere, into Nowhere: Politics, Perfectionism, and John Huston’s In This Our Life – Paul C. Taylor (UCLA)
The Irrelevance of Truth in Rashomon – Pamela Foa (Brown University)
On Mamet’s Oleanna and Expectations about Education – Craig Fox (PennWest University)
I May Destroy You: TV and the Growth of Knowledge – Katheryn Doran (Hamilton College)
Murdoch’s Caring Gaze and My Octopus Teacher – Thomas E. Wartenberg (Mount Holyoke College)
Sketch Comedy as Philosophy: the case of Curb Your Enthusiasm – Noel Carroll (CUNY), paper delivered by Paul Guyer (Brown University)
In Defense of Methodological Pluralism – Malcolm Turvey (Tufts University)
Parallel-session presentations:
Intimations of Meaning in Woman at War‘s Passionate Utterance – William Day (Le Moyne College)
“You and me, same!”: Reflections on the Philosophy of Envy in Do The Right Thing – Logan B. Canada-Johnson (University of Southern California)
What is Distinctive of Film Emotions – Abel B. Franco (California State University Northridge)
Islands Adrift: War, Allegory, and Spatial Fragmentation in The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) and The Cure at Troy’ (1990) Bernardita M. Cubillos (University of Chile)
What if he means what he says? – Performancy, irony, and moral philosophy in Dexter – Timna Rauch (University of Utrecht)
TV Series and Skepticism about Character – Talia Morag (University of Woollongong)
Film and the Logic of Dream – David Macarthur (University of Sydney)
Scenes of instruction: The King of Comedy (Scorsese, 1982) – Dominic Lash (University of Cambridge)
Philosophy of Film, Without Theory 