Works & Remarks by Students & Others

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  • ItemOpen Access
    Conceptual and moral ambiguities of deepfakes: a decidedly old turn
    (Synthese, 2023-06-29) Crippen, Matthew
    Everyday (mis)uses of deepfakes define prevailing conceptualizations of what they are and the moral stakes in their deployment. But one complication in understanding deepfakes is that they are not photographic yet nonetheless manipulate lens-based recordings with the intent of mimicking photographs. The harmfulness of deepfakes, moreover, significantly depends on their potential to be mistaken for photographs and on the belief that photographs capture actual events, a tenet known as the transparency thesis, which scholars have somewhat ironically attacked by citing digital imaging techniques as counterexamples. Combining these positions, this paper sets out two core points: (1) that conceptions about the nature of photography introduce imperatives about its uses; and (2) that popular cultural understandings of photography imply normative ideas that infuse our encounters with deepfakes. Within this, I further raise the question of what moral ground deepfakes occupy that allows them to have such a potentially devastating effect. I show that answering this question involves reinstating the notion that photographs are popularly conceived of as transparent. The rejoinder to this argument, however, is that to take the sting out of deepfakes we must, once again, become skeptical of the veracity of all images, including photoreal ones. This kind of critical mindedness was warranted before the invention of photography for both pictorial imprints and written accounts from various media sources. Given this, along with the fact that photographic trickery is nothing new, deepfakes need not push us into a post-truth epistemic abyss, for they imply a decidedly old turn.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Digital Fabrication and its Meaning for Photography and Film
    (2016) Crippen, Matthew; Ingram, Susan
    Bazin, Cavell and other prominent theorists have asserted that movies are essentially photographic with more recent scholars such as Carroll and Gaut protesting. Today CGI stands as a further counter, in addition to past objections such as editing, animation and blue screen. Also central in debates is whether photography is transparent, that is, whether it allows us to see things in other times and places. I maintain photography is transparent, notwithstanding objections citing digital manipulation. However, taking a cue from Cavell—albeit one poorly outlined in his work—I argue this is not so much because of what photography physically is, but because of what “photography” has come to mean. I similarly argue digital technologies have not significantly altered what cinematic media “are” because they have not fundamentally modified what they mean; and that cinema retains a photographic legacy, even when it abandons photographic technologies to digitally manufacture virtual worlds.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Time, Bergson and the Film Theory of Andrei Tarkovsky
    (1990) Totaro, Donato
    A thesis by Donato Totaro [M.F.A., 1990] on the affinities between the philosophical conjectures of Henri Bergson and the movies and remarks on filmmaking of Andrei Tarkovsky.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Hearts of the West: Some Aspects of Women's Roles in American Westerns, 1939-1969
    (1991) Hehner, Barbara
    A thesis by Barbara Hehner [M.F.A., 1991] on the nature, scope and limits of the representation of women within American western movies, 1939 – 1969.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Hugo Münsterberg: a German Jew (?) in America
    (2018) Horak, Jan-Christopher
    An historical account by Jan-Christopher Horak of Hugo Münsterberg's life and work in America – or, more exactly, upon the nature and consequences of being a German Jew at work within Harvard University during the first decades of the 20th-century.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Performers Playing Themselves
    (2016) Crippen, Matthew
    An enquiry by Matthew Crippen into how we encounter actors as we perceive them by means of a movies, having encountered them within other movies beforehand. After discussing how we use photographs, he concludes that we cannot help but register the actors as actors as we encounter them enacting rôles. Echoing what filmmakers have said and done and adding to classic accounts of Cavell, Santayana and others, he concludes that the very nature of movies well-nigh invites performers to play themselves.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Art and Pragmatism: James and Dewey on the Reconstructive Presuppositions of Experience
    (2010) Crippen, Matthew
    Dissertation by Matthew Crippen on the pragmatic construals by James and Dewey of how we experience works of art, supervised by EWC and defended in May of 2010, as submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy, Graduate Programme in Philosophy, York University, Toronto, Ontario.
  • ItemOpen Access
    'The Mind Hears': an Examination of Some Philosophical Perspectives on Musical Experience
    (2000) Bicknell, Jeannette
    Dissertation by Jeanette Bicknell on the scope and nature of the 'levels of understanding' that determine how we experience music, supervised by EWC and defended in May of 2000, as submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy, Graduate Programme in Philosophy, York University, Toronto, Ontario.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Reclaiming the Gaze: Mulvey, Feminism and the Woman Spectator
    (1985) Hehner, Barbara
    A essay by Barbara Hehner on feminism and its relevance for the study of films and filmmaking as submitted in November of 1985 in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a course in Film Theory taught by EWC. She was at the time a graduate student within the Master of Fine Arts programme in Film at York University.
  • ItemOpen Access
    'In a Moment of Brilliance': Heidegger's Horsemen, HIGH NOON and the Existential Sentiment of 'Westerns'
    (1981) Cameron, Evan Wm.; Hehner, Barbara
    By evidence and common consent, great 'western' movies are mythical encompassing a Weltanschauung that has engaged viewers within diverse cultures for over a century. Questions recur, however. What makes them so? and why have they proven so enticing to male viewers in particular? Within this essay I and Barbara Hehner address those questions, attending to the design of HIGH NOON as exemplary.