The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan

Edited by Jason T. Eberl and George A. Dunn - Contributions by George A. Dunn; Jason T. Eberl; J. L. A. Garcia; Lance Belluomini; Joseph J. Foy; Timothy M. Dale; Kevin S. Decker; Jason Burke Murphy; Deborah Knight; George McKnight; Dennis Knepp; Karen D. Hoffman; Jamie Carlin Watson and William A. Lindenmuth

As a director, writer, and producer, Christopher Nolan has substantially impacted contemporary cinema through avant garde films, such as Following and Memento, and his contribution to wider pop culture with his Dark Knight trilogy. His latest film, Interstellar, delivered the same visual qualities and complex, thought-provoking plotlines his audience anticipates. The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan collects sixteen essays, written by professional philosophers and film theorists, discussing themes such as self-identity and self-destruction, moral choice and moral doubt, the nature of truth and its value, whether we can trust our perceptions of what’s “real,” the political psychology of heroes and villains, and what it means to be a “viewer” of Nolan’s films. Whether his protagonists are squashing themselves like a bug, struggling to create an identity and moral purpose for themselves, suffering from their own duplicitous plots, donning a mask that both strikes fear and reveals their true nature, or having to weigh the lives of those they love against the greater good, there are no simple solutions to the questions Nolan’s films provoke; exploring these questions yields its own reward.

Lexington Books

Pages: 242 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-1352-4 • Hardback • June 2017 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-4985-1353-1 • eBook • June 2017 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: The Philosophy of Popular Culture

Subjects: Philosophy / Essays, Social Science / Popular Culture

The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan

Hardback

eBook

Summary

As a director, writer, and producer, Christopher Nolan has substantially impacted contemporary cinema through avant garde films, such as Following and Memento, and his contribution to wider pop culture with his Dark Knight trilogy. His latest film, Interstellar, delivered the same visual qualities and complex, thought-provoking plotlines his audience anticipates. The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan collects sixteen essays, written by professional philosophers and film theorists, discussing themes such as self-identity and self-destruction, moral choice and moral doubt, the nature of truth and its value, whether we can trust our perceptions of what’s “real,” the political psychology of heroes and villains, and what it means to be a “viewer” of Nolan’s films. Whether his protagonists are squashing themselves like a bug, struggling to create an identity and moral purpose for themselves, suffering from their own duplicitous plots, donning a mask that both strikes fear and reveals their true nature, or having to weigh the lives of those they love against the greater good, there are no simple solutions to the questions Nolan’s films provoke; exploring these questions yields its own reward.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 242 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-1352-4 • Hardback • June 2017 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-4985-1353-1 • eBook • June 2017 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: The Philosophy of Popular Culture

Subjects: Philosophy / Essays, Social Science / Popular Culture

Author

Jason T. Eberl is Semler Endowed Chair for Medical Ethics and professor of philosophy at Marian University.

George A. Dunn lectures in philosophy and religion at the University of Indianapolis and the Ningbo Institute of Technology in Zhejiang Province.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part 1: Moral Philosophy
1. George A. Dunn—Deceit, Desire, and Mimetic Doubling in the Films of Christopher Nolan
2. Jason T. Eberl—“So You Can Be My ‘John G.’”: Moral Culpability in Memento
3. J. L. A. Garcia: White Nights of the Soul—Insomnia and the Struggle for Purity of Heart
4. Lance Belluomini & George A. Dunn—Love, Value, and the Human Destiny in Interstellar
Part 2: Politics and Culture
5. Joseph J. Foy & Timothy M. Dale—“They Turned to a Man They Didn’t Fully Understand”: The Dark Knight and the Conservative Critique of Political Liberalism
6. Kevin S. Decker—The Vale of Top Hats: Duplicability, Duplicity and The Prestige
7. Jason Burke Murphy—Plato, Habermas, and the Demonic Cobb
8. Deborah Knight & George McKnight—“Are You Watching Closely?” Narrative Comprehension in Nolan’s Early Films
Part 3: Epistemology and Metaphysics
9. Dennis Knepp—Remembering, Reminding, and Forgetting with Leonard Shelby
10. Karen D. Hoffman—False Tattoos and Failed Totems: Kierkegaard and Subjective Truth in Memento and Inception
11. Jamie Carlin Watson—Inception and Perception: What Should A Dream Thief Believe?
12. William A. Lindenmuth—Spinning Tops and Brains in Vats: Nolan’s Inception and Nozick’s “Experience Machine”

Part 4: Time and Selfhood
13. Peter S. Fosl—“You Don’t Know Who You Are”: Imagining the Self in the Films of Christopher Nolan
14. David LaRocca—“Memory Man”: The Constitution of Personal Identity in Memento
15. Louis-Paul Willis—Engaging Otherness through Following: Subjectivity and Contemporary Film Spectatorship
16. Todd McGowan—We Are the Change That We Seek: The Subjectivity of Substance in Interstellar
Bibliography

The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan

The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan

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