Philosophy and the Patience of Film in Cavell and Nancy

Daniele Rugo is Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences, Media & Communications at Brunel University, London. He is the author of Jean-Luc Nancy and the Thinking of Otherness (2013). His articles have appeared in Angelaki, Continental Philosophy Review, Film-Philosophy and Studies in European Cinema.

Philosophy and the Patience of Film presents a comparative study of the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Stanley Cavell. It discusses the effect of their philosophical engagement with film, and proposes that the interaction between philosophy and film produces a power of patience capable of turning our negation of the world into a relation with it.

Through detailed readings of cinematic works ranging from Hollywood classics to contemporary Iranian cinema, this book describes the interaction between film and philosophy as a productive friction from which the concept of patience emerges as a demand for thinking.

Daniele Rugo explains how Nancy and Cavell's relationship with film demands the surrendering of philosophical mastery, and that it is precisely this act in view of the world that brings Cavell and Nancy to the study of film. While clarifying the nature of their engagement with film this book suggests that film does not represent the world, but 'realizes' it. Thisrealization provides a scene of instruction for philosophy.

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

General Introduction

Chapter 1: Taking things to heart

Chapter 2: Cavell and the conditions of the world

Chapter 3: Nancy and the world without sense

Chapter 4: The World Realized

Chapter 5: The Patience of Film

Notes

Bibliography

Index