The Critical Issue: Philosophy, Film, and Music

What is the meaning of life? How do philosophy, film, and music depict these critical issues that can affect us all? That is what this course wants to investigate.

The famous text, Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes will introduce the class to the world of being a philosopher. Students will read and analyze this first modern book of philosophy and the first book to treat matters of life, death, and resurrection in the modern style. They will then take this philosophical base and examine the very same topic in the film Vertigo, by the infamous director Alfred Hitchcock. The film takes a markedly different vantage point than previous readings. Building further perceptions, students will watch, listen, and replay Erich Wolfgang Korngold's The Dead City, a masterpiece of early expressionism and, at the same time, a widely accessible, philosophical reflection on what it is to live, how the prospect of death affects lives, and the possibility of significant rebirth or resurrection.

This seminar will allow a chance to construct an intellectual setting in which students can organize their own learning through thinking-ahead activities; small-group interactions; temporary partnering; developing roundtable presentations and discussions; composing philosophy books; interviewing a local philosopher, film maker, or operatic artist; as well as the writing, viewing, listening, and analyzing material covered in class. A daily log of personal experiences will be required in the form of a philosophy journal.