UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
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Item SEEING AND THE SEEN: POST-PHENOMENOLOGICAL ETHICS AND THE CINEMA(2004-10-18) Bergen-Aurand, Brian Keith; Wang, Orrin N.C.; Comparative Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)What is the relationship between cinema and ethics, especially an elusive ethics more concerned with responding to alterity than with establishing moral order? Seeing and the Seen addresses this question by demonstrating how three seemingly unambiguous cinematic moments (from nations with totalitarian histories) are structured by ambiguity and aporia. These uncertain structures evoke non-assimilative, non-totalizing ethical responses that counter monolithic interpretations of cinema. Previously, skeptical approaches to cinema have not focused on ethics. They have relied upon hermeneutic techniques to "interpret" elements and then discuss their relevance. Their concerns have been ontological and epistemological. Using the post-phenomenological thought of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, I argue, however, that skepticism connects cinema to an ethics of response. Chapter One introduces the ideas of post-phenomenological ethics, skepticism, and cinema, to show how their interrelationship actually challenges traditional views, such as Levinas's that see art as unethical. Chapter Two analyzes narrative absence and the ethics of alienation in Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura. I compare ontological and ethical readings of this film to argue against interpreting it as tragic. The final caress between the film's protagonists is a metaphor for cinematic representations of ethical response. Chapter Three discusses the ethics of pornography in films by Pedro Almodóvar, who shows how pornography and non-pornography remain interdependent. Focusing on cinematic iterability, I demonstrate how pornographic and non-pornographic tropes oscillate between the two genres, rendering their borders uncertain. This uncertainty makes pornography more related to skepticism and ethics than previously imagined. Chapter Four outlines the "total criticism" of the ethics of law in Oshima Nagisa's cinema. Specifically, I examine how the freeze frame at the end of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence evokes an ethics of the cinema that exposes the gaps of total criticism. The freeze frame is the least discussed cinematic device; however, it provides the most concrete example of the elusive relation between skepticism, ethics, and cinema. The Conclusion argues that these examples are only starting points toward further investigations of how filmic uncertainty highlights the relation between cinema and ethics. In the end, I emphasize this point by responding to instances from contemporary documentary filmmaking.Item Encountering Faces Of The Other: A Phenomenological Study Of American High School Students Journeying Through South Africa(2004-07-06) Garran, Christopher Scott; Hultgren, Francine; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT TITLE OF DISSERTATION: ENCOUNTERING FACES OF THE OTHER: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS JOURNEYING THROUGH SOUTH AFRICA Christopher Scott Garran, Doctor of Philosophy, 2004 Dissertation directed by: Professor Francine Hultgren Department of Education Policy & Leadership In this phenomenological study, I explore the lived experience of American high school students encountering the Other within South Africa. My research question wonders, "While dwelling with one-an-Other, what is the experience like for my students to journey to the place of South Africa and to encounter the primary Other of the people, the Other of nature and the Other of social justice?" My exploration relies heavily upon the works of Levinas, Heidegger and Freire. As a research guide, van Manen keeps me attuned pedagogically. Through the de-tour and the tension of the encounter experience, I follow my students' voices. As I dig deep into their lived experience of encountering the face of the South African Other, I unearth the phenomenon's essential structures. A preliminary study with two students reveals in the initial encounter a "starting from oneself" where they feel a captured, advertised and alienated presence. In going face-to-face and in unpacking their prejudices, they place the Other behind an exotic mask. Considering the lived place of South Africa, these two students speak to a dwelling together and a wandering-out. As I dig deeper, the eight students of my study lead me toward the tensions within South Africa's beautiful, poor places. In these lived places, the Other's face summons my students and guilt spreads across their being. In seeing the Other, my students begin to realize that they, too, are watched. They begin to recognize the Other in the self and the self in the Other. Fractured by their encounter, my students step away from the ego-self. They begin to homestead and to construct an-Other-self. Standing on the frontier of transformation, my students begin to cultivate a self that crosses borders, holds an awareness of its attachment to the world and feels its unfinishedness. Finally, I suggest that teachers and students must lend their presence to one-an-Other while re-implacing themselves out in the world of lived experience. Intervening in the world, together as teacher and students, we cultivate the pedagogical conditions for transformative, social justice education.