'Derrida' DVD Screening (Monday 10th January)

The Literary and Critical Theory Seminar is beginning the Spring term with a DVD screening of Derrida (2002, directors: Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman).

The screening will take place on Monday 10th January in Senate House, room G34, from 6-8pm. All are welcome to come along!

Here are some details on the film:

"This award-winning documentary gives an intimate portrait of the brilliant, controversial philosopher and intellectual French icon Jacques Derrida, whose theory of deconstruction has deeply influenced the studies of literature, philosophy, ethics, architecture and law, indelibly marking the intellectual landscape of the 20th and 21st centuries.

"Combining extremely rare private footage of Derrida with his reflections on violence, love and death, the film also investigates the concept of biography, exploring the relationship between the public and the private. Provocative, potent and entertaining, Derrida marks an inspired collaboration between philosophy scholar Amy Ziering Kofman and filmmaker Kirby Dick, the director of Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist. The mesmerising score is courtesy of Ryuchi Sakamoto (Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, Gohatto)."

Hope to see you there!

Session 4: Speaker: Dr Simon Glendinning (Wednesday 24th November)

For our next session, we are thrilled to welcome as a guest speaker Dr Simon Glendinning (LSE), who will be giving a talk entitled 'The Deepest Wounds: On Blows to Narcissism'.

The session will take place on Wednesday 24th November in room G35, Senate House, between 6 and 8pm. All are welcome to attend.

Simon is Reader in European Philosophy at the London School of Economics, and Director of the LSE Forum for European Philosophy. He realised he could make a career in philosophy when he spent two hours successfully untangling the twisted strings of a stunt kite. Wittgenstein says that 'philosophy unties knots in our thinking; hence its results must be simple, but philosophizing has to be as complicated as the knots it unties'. Simon has a BPhil and a DPhil in Philosophy from Oxford University and has been exploring knots for a living since 1994. He is still not clear whether philosophy is a complicated education for grown-ups or just a simple occupation for grown-ups who never made it beyond childhood.