Philosophy | McDowell Conference | College of Arts and Sciences, American University, Washington, DC

McDowell Conference on Philosophy & Social Policy

The William Fraser McDowell Professorship was established in 1937 on the basis of a gift to the Department of Philosophy and Religion from the estate of Bishop William Fraser McDowell. The two previous incumbents were Professor Aubert Bain Potorf and Professor Harold A. Durfee. The present incumbent, Professor Jeffrey Reiman, has among his responsibilities the organization of this conference.

18th Annual McDowell Conference

Fall 2009 Program: Philosophy, Politics, and Film
Friday, October 30, 1:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Butler Boardroom

1:00–3:30 p.m. SESSION I

Welcome
Peter Starr, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,
American University

Introduction: "The Power of Movies"
Jeffrey Reiman, William Fraser McDowell Professor of Philosophy,
American University

"Cinema Wars: Reflections on the Politics and Ideology of
Film in the Bush-Cheney and Obama Eras"
Douglas Kellner, George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education,
University of California, Los Angeles

"Free Gentrify Your Mind...Or: Training Day with the King of Scotland"
Paul C. Taylor, Chair of Philosophy,
Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought,
Temple University

"Film and Human Rights Advocacy"
Ronit Avni,
Founder and Executive Director, Just Vision

3:30–4:00 p.m. REFRESHMENTS

4:00–6:00 p.m. SESSION II

"Honest Truths: Ethical Conflict in Documentary Film"
Patricia Aufderheide,
Professor and Director of the Center for Social Media,
American University

"Enjoy My Misery! Gaze as Social Criticism in Iranian Cinema"
Farhang Erfani, Assistant Professor of Philosophy,
American University

"Y Tu Thundercat también: Glocalization, National Cinema and Alfonso Cuarón"
Jeffrey Middents, Associate Professor of Literature,
American University

BIOGRAPHIES

Patricia Aufderheide is a professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, DC and Director of the Center for Social Media there. She is the author of, among others, Documentary: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2007), The Daily Planet (University of Minnesota Press, 2000), and Communications Policy in the Public Interest (Guilford Press, 1999). She has been a Fulbright and John Simon Guggenheim fellow and has served as a juror at the Sundance Film Festival. She has received numerous journalism and scholarly awards, including career achievement awards in 2006 from the International Documentary Association and in 2008 from the International Digital Media and Arts Association. Professor Aufderheide serves on the board of directors of Kartemquin Films, a leading independent social documentary production company, and on the editorial boards of a variety of publications, including Communication Law and Policy and In These Times newspaper.

Ronit Avni is the Founder and Executive Director of Just Vision, a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC and Jerusalem that researches, documents and creates media about Palestinian and Israeli civilian-led efforts to resolve the conflict nonviolently. Ms. Avni directed and produced Encounter Point, a feature documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and won five international awards including Audience Award for Best Documentary at San Francisco’s International Film Festival. Previously, she worked for Peter Gabriel’s organization, WITNESS, training human rights defenders from Afghanistan to the Gambia to produce videos to deter further abuses and as evidence before courts. Ms. Ronit co-edited the book, Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism (Pluto Press, 2005). Her essay, “Inverting the Shame-Based Human Rights Documentation Model in the Context of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict,” appeared in American Anthropologist in 2006. In 2005 she received the Auburn Seminary’s “Lives of Commitment” Award, was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Farhang Erfani is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at American University and Research Fellow at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa. His research is in continental philosophy, with a particular focus on political theory, existentialism and aesthetics.

Douglas Kellner is George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education at UCLA and is author of many books on social theory, politics, history and culture, including Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film (Indiana University Press, 1990), co-authored with Michael Ryan, and an Emile de Antonio Reader co-edited with Dan Streible. Other works include Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity; Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond; and a trilogy of books on the media and the Bush administration, encompassing Grand Theft 2000, From 9/11 to Terror War, and Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy. Author of Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, Kellner is editing collected papers of Herbert Marcuse, four volumes of which have appeared with Routledge. Kellner’s Guys and Guns Amok: Domestic Terrorism and School Shootings from the Oklahoma City Bombings to the Virginia Tech Massacre won the 2008 AESA award as the best book on education. Forthcoming in 2009 with Blackwell is Kellner’s Cinema Wars: Hollywood Film and Politics in the Bush/Cheney Era.

Jeffrey Middents studies and teaches film and world literature, specifically focusing on Latin American narratives from the 1960s to the present. His film-oriented courses cover a wide range of concepts, including national cinemas, genre, the auteur, stardom, film criticism, and short film. His book, Writing National Cinema: Film Journals and Film Culture in Peru (UPNE/Dartmouth College Press, 2009) investigates the historical place of cultural writing within a national discourse by tracing how Peruvian cinema was shaped by local film criticism. Professor Middents also has published essays on a variety of other topics, including documentary aesthetics in the work of Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán, and Peruvian director Luis Llosa’s films made under producer Roger Corman.

Jeffrey Reiman is the William Fraser McDowell Professor of Philosophy at American University. He is the author of In Defense of Political Philosophy (Harper & Row, 1972), Justice and Modern Moral Philosophy (Yale, 1990), Critical Moral Liberalism: Theory and Practice (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), The Death Penalty: For and Against (with Louis Pojman) (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), Abortion and the Ways We Value Human Life (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice, 9th ed. (Allyn & Bacon, 2010), and more than sixty articles in philosophy and criminal justice journals and anthologies.

Paul C. Taylor chairs the department of philosophy at Temple University, directs Temple’s Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought, and helped found the Jamestown Project at Harvard Law School. His writings explore questions in aesthetics, race theory, Africana philosophy, and social philosophy, and include the book Race: A Philosophical Introduction (Polity, 2004). He is currently working on a book called Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics, and editing a four volume reference set on philosophical race theory.

Past Conferences

2008 Philosophy and the Emotions

2006 Rights of and Duties to Children

2005 Ethics and Genetics

2004 Philosophy and Tolerance

2003 Philosophy for the 21st Century

2002 The Philosophical Implications of September 11th

2001 Philosophy and Democracy

1999 Philosophy and Race

1998 Philosophy and Human Rights

1997 Philosophy and Feminism

1996 The Morality of Welfare for the Poor