EXAMINED LIFE Philosophy is in the streets! A film by Astra Taylor,90 minutes, United States 2008
Featuring: Kwame Anthony Appiah, Judith Butler, Michael Hardt, Martha Nussbaum, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Sanura Taylor, Cornel West and Slavoj Zizek
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates
Taking philosophy out of the books and classrooms and putting it back onto the streets, Examined Life accompanies some of the world’s most influential thinkers in places and spaces that reflect and resonate their ideas.
Peter Singer dissects the ethics of consumption against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s extravagant stores. Man’s relationship with environment is theorised by the ‘Elvis of cultural theory’, Slavoj Zizek, in a recycling centre. Judith Butler takes in San Francisco’s Mission District with a friend as they question society’s complex and often awkward relationship with disability. In New York, Cornel West – perhaps America’s best known public intellectual – vividly compares philosophy to jazz and blues within a backdrop of Manhattan as he drives through the streets, reminding us that great ideas are born of engaging with the hustle and bustle around us.
Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life explores the way we see the world and philosophy’s ability to influence it.
About the director:
Astra Taylor is a writer and documentary film maker. She was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1979 and raised in Athens, Georgia. She has been an instructor in sociology departments at the University of Georgia and State University of New York, New Paltz, where she has taught classes on social theory, globalisation and the sociology of film. She has contributed chapters to three anthologies, Growing Up Postmodern: Neoliberalism and the War on the Young, The Politics of Community and Dr. Rice in the House. She has directed Zizek!, a feature documentary about the cult philosopher, which premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival and was released by ICA Films in 2007.
Watch the Trailer:YOUTUBE
More Info and Book:ICALondon
