[Commlist] New book: Performing Ethics through Film Style

I’m very pleased to announce the publication of my new book, /Performing 
Ethics through Film Style: Levinas with the Dardenne Brothers, Barbet 
Schroeder and Paul Schrader/. The book is published by Edinburgh 
University Press and is now available in hardback and as an e-book.


Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy has had a significant influence on 
film theory in recent years. Proposing a relationship between Levinasian 
ethics and film style, and bringing it into a productive dialogue with 
theories of performativity, this book explores this influence through 
three directorial bodies of work: those of the Dardenne Brothers, Barbet 
Schroeder and Paul Schrader. Discussing a range of films – including the 
Dardennes’ /Le Fils/ and /The Kid with a Bike/, Schroeder’s /Maîtresse/ 
and /Reversal of Fortune/ and Schrader’s /American Gigolo/ and /The 
Comfort of Strangers/ – the book demonstrates how film styles can 
perform a Levinasian ethics.


“Lamberti proposes that certain films by the Dardenne brothers, Barbet 
Schroeder and Paul Schrader perform the Levinasian ethical encounter in 
ways that involve the viewer in that experience and responsibility. This 
original intervention in the field of Levinasian ethics and film is 
sharply focused, compelling, and beautifully written. The book engages 
with debates about film as language, raises questions about film as 
performativity, and through close analysis shows how style creates 
ethical encounters with the Other. Lamberti demonstrates how film can be 
performative Levinasian ethics, and this makes a substantial 
contribution to the understanding of the ethical possibilities with 
which film-philosophy is concerned.”

– Dr Lucy Bolton, Queen Mary, University of London


*


*Contents:*


Introduction: Textual Performances in Levinas and Film


*Part I: The Dardenne Brothers: An Ethics Without Rest*

Part I Introduction

1. /Je Pense à Vous/ and /La Promesse/: From Describing to Performing

2. Levinasian Responsibility in /Le Fils/

3. /The Kid with a Bike/ and the Reframing of Ethics


*Part II: Barbet Schroeder: Devoted to the Other*

Part II Introduction

4. /Maîtresse/: Direction without Domination

5. The Ethical and the Juridical in /Reversal of Fortune/ and /Terror’s 
Advocate/

6. /Our Lady of the Assassins/ and Levinas’s Ethics as First Philosophy


*Part III: Paul Schrader: An Unexpected Ethics*

Part III Introduction

7. /American Gigolo/ and the Ethics of Falling in Love

8. Levinasian Limits of Performativity in /Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters/

9. Passivity and Responsibility in /The Comfort of Strangers/, 
/Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist /and /Adam Resurrected/


Conclusion: Levinasian Films in the World


*


With thanks to Edinburgh University Press, there is a code for a 30% 
discount (valid until 29 February 2020). To order from Africa, Asia, 
Europe and Oceania, visit edinburghuniversitypress.com and use the code 
NEW30. To order from the Americas, visit oup.com/us and use the code 
ADISTA5. There’s also more information 
<https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-performing-ethics-through-film-style.html> 
about the book on the EUP site.


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