Good morning everyone and welcome to the mimetic theory
and film day.
We have a lot in store, and
as we go throughout the day we’ll introduce our
speakers and our topics
but to kick the day off I just wanted to ask professor Brett Bowden, who is Director of
Research,
(International),here to just say a few words of welcome.
Some formalities: in Australia it is customary for someone to either Welcome to Country or
acknowledge
Country, and Western Sydney University takes part in that custom.
So on behalf of WSU we acknowledge that today’s symposium is
being held on the land of the Darug People of the Darug nation.
They acknowledge that their ancestors,
who have been traditional owners and custodians of this country
for thousands of years.
We also acknowledge and pay our respects to the Darug elders,
past and present.
So on behalf of the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, I’m delight to welcome
you all to this workshop on mimetic theory and film.
So the aim of the workshop is to open
up the possibilities that René Girard’s mimetic theory
presents for analysing and interpreting
film.
And now, a confession.
I am the father of a four year old and a nine month year old,
and I must confess that I didn’t know films were still
being made.
[Laughter]
The last film I watched, I think, was over three nights!
I collapse into bed at the end of the day and try to
watch a little bit of news if I can.
To help us explore these possibilities, Diego and Chris have put together
a distinguished and well-qualified panel,
who I was fortunate enough to meet this morning.
Professors Paul Dumouchel, Sandor Goodhart, and Paisley Livingston - and along with our
own Diego Bubbio and Chris Fleming, you are in good hands for the day.
You couldn’t put together a better-qualified group of people to speak on the topic.
Let me just say that, for some of my own research purposes, a few years
ago I wrote a book called Civilisation and War.
And I found that René Girard’s insights into mimetic rivarly and scapegoating
to be particular useful.
In my role I do a little bit of everything.
On Friday I’m opening an event at the State Library of New South Wales
for the republication of “Journey to Horseshoe Bend,” which was a book by
an anthropologist at the turn of the twentieth century, about taking his dying
father down the river, to a very remote spot in
the Northern Territory, which I also have an interest in, because I read that book
as well, because I recently did another book
on the bombing of Darwin.
My interests are scattered far and wide
But unfortunately, in this role, I don’t get to sit in on events like today.
The website of the Imitatio organisation is a truly wonderful resource for novice
and expert alike - and I truly am a novice on this topic.
There’s an online library with an excellent selection of resources.
And so we’d like to thank the Imitatio foundation for the very generous
support they’ve given us.
They have indeed helped greatly to make
this day possible.So, finally, congratulations to Diego and Chris
for putting together such an interesting and thought provoking symposium on
mimetic theory and film.
I hope you all enjoy the day, both the talks and the screenings that follow
- which are past my bedtime, unfortunately.
[Laughter.]
So, please, welcome to Sydney, and welcome to Western Sydney University.
I hope you all have a wonderful day.
I’m sure you will.
Thank you.
Greetings.
It’s me again, unfortunately.
I’ll hand you over soon enough to people who are far more interesting
and far more qualified to talk about the topic.
But before that I have to introduce
Professor Paul Dumouchel, who is the first speaker this morning.
He is Professor in the Graduate School of
Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences at
Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, where he teaches political philosophy
as well as philosophy of science.
His main fields of research
are the philosophy of the social and biological sciences as well as political
philosophy.
He’s the author of, among other works, Emotions, and - with Jean-Pierre Dupuy
-
a very influential study entitled “L’Enfer Des Choses: René Girard et la Logique de
l’ économie.”
The last of these was the first of Professor Dumouchel’s books that I came across when
researching René Girard’s work.
It was a very significant and influential work
at the time and set the agenda on the questions of
economy, political economy and Girard’s work.
He has published
many articles on emotions, as an object of research
in both the social and the biological sciences, on war, violence, and terrorism, and well
as
the history of philosophy.
One of the first articles of Paul’s that I came across
was on Hobbes.
He has a book coming
out next year on robots and robotics, and the most recent
book in English is “The Ambivalence of Scarcity,” published byvMichigan State University Press.
He is also a contributor to this volume, “Mimesis, Movies,
and the Media,” which is relevant to today’s topic, edited
by myself, Scott Cowdell, and Joel Hodge.
And so it gives me great pleasure to welcome Paul back to Australia and to WSU
to talk to us this morning.
Oh!
The paper!
“On Fiction
and Truth in Joshua Oppenheimer’s ‘The Act of Killing’” Thanks, Paul…