Welcome, NYC cinephiles & thinkers

NYC Film & Philosophy is run in parallel with the Philosophical Reading Meetup [ http://www.meetup.com/philosophical ]. Where Philosophical Reading is for focused readings & dialog on particular texts, this group accommodates a looser, more general discussion relating the film with ideas.

The theme is to discover and debate cinematic expressions of philosophical ideas. An essay or a key passage from a philosophical work is distributed prior to each meeting for comparative reading during the event. Meetings are generally held at a downtown theater for viewing, with a cafe or pub discussion following the film.

Film and philosophy text choices are open to suggestions by members. Some philosophical subjects we may touch on include: Deleuze's Cinema 1 & 2 books (The Movement-Image and The Time-Image) as inspiration for considering film philosophically; Hegel and Heidegger on the concepts of time, reflection and history; Kant's self-conscious ethics versus the ritual practice; Foucault on knowledge as social power; Nietzsche's Over-man and the Eternal Return of the Same; Plato on erotic love; Marx's theory of society; Dawkins and the unphilosophical debate of science versus creationism; Judith Butler and postmodernist feminism; Cornel West on race, religion, and philosophy in America; Slavoj Zizek on Lacanian psychoanalysis applied to film; Alain Badiou on the Subject of the Event.

Films can range anywhere from the high-concept art film to the low-concept pop phenomenon as subject for ideological critique.