Monday, October 30, 2006

It's "Waking Life", people.

So, World Philosophy Day is looking like this:
Institute of Governance, 63 University Road,
5ish, Wine Reception,
6ish, Screening of Richard Linklater's Waking Life:
"Waking Life is an animated story about a nameless young man, played by Wiley Wiggins, who finds himself trapped in a continuous series of dreams. He walks or levitates from one scene to another, listening to a range of theories by philosophers, intellectuals and crackpots. The text commentary to the film states that “Waking life features a complex interweaving of conversations with professors, artists, writers and performers. There is no single theory behind the film. Rather the film is an exploration from many points of view of past and current trends in philosophy.” The principal plot to the story is that Wiley returns to Austin, Texas after a trip, is dropped off at a random location in town and subsequently hit by a car. During the first half of the film he listens to various peoples theories about human existence, saying very little himself. In the second half of the film Wiley realizes that he is stuck in a series of lucid dreams, and he attempts to wake up. As his efforts fail he considers that he may in fact be dead, and experiencing a dream-like condition in the afterlife. Director Richard Linklater states in the DVD filmmaker’s commentary that all of the ideas expressed in the movie should be accessible to viewers, even though the dialog is conceptually dense. Several of the exchanges were from ideas developed for his previous movies, which were left out of those projects for various reasons. Other exchanges were generated from the actual views of the professionals or intellectuals who appear. About half of this movie’s content, he stated, is intentionally philosophical. "
And it's all free! Can you afford not to be there?

Thursday, October 26, 2006

This is all you need

World Philosophy Day

More on the UNESCO World Philosophy Day event. As with the past three years, a reception with refreshments will open the evening. New to this year, we'll screen a film once we're all settled in.

Richard Linklater's 'Waking Life', or Terence Malick's 'Thin Red Line', look like the main contenders for a showing. Waking Life raises more questions than it presumes to answer, which is like philosophy, while Malick's film is a sublime Heideggerian odyssey. You can't be bad to that.

All this on the sixteenth of November.

First things third.

Right, this is the web presence of the diminuitive but handsome set of UG and PG philosophers from Queen's University, Belfast. Our usual trick is to meet up of a Wednesday afternoon at 2pm to listen to and discuss a philosophical paper, essay article or whatever. We do this, then we generally retire to a nearby imbibing emporium to sample a few glasses of refreshing drink.

Everyone is, of course, welcome to join us, interest being more desirable than expertise.

This Wednesday, at 2pm in Seminar Room 2 of the Institute of Governance, 63 University Road, Charlotte will be presenting her take on things (details to follow).

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

UNESCO World Philosophy Day

"The objective of this Day is to encourage the peoples of the world to share between them their philosophical heritage and to open their daily reflections to new ideas, as well as to inspire a public debate between intellectuals and civil society on the challenges to which our societies are confronted today. "
UNESCO World Philosophy Day this year happens on November the 16th. To do our bit, we'll be hosting a wine reception and showing a film with exciting philosophical ramifications on Queen's campus, thanks to the generous support of the Royal Institute of Philosophy.
Watch this space.

Queen's Philosophy goes all technological

Mornin' all.
This is the new ethereal internetical home of the grand old QUB philosophy society.
See here for information on meetings, events, socials and whatnot.