The Virtual World Viewed: La projection du monde
International Conference
May 27, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
17 rue de la Sorbonne, salle D306 (salle à la Fresque)
DESCRIPTION
Just over half a century young, The World Viewed—Stanley Cavell’s self-declared ‘little book about film’—remains an invaluable resource bristling with potentiality. Not only does it contain the germs of concepts and ideas Cavell would himself develop (or abandon) in subsequent works; it forms a reservoir of intuitions that had to await—and still await—the future to become actualized. Moreover, Cavell’s now seminal work of film-philosophy introduces a form of film criticism grounded in one’s own experience that is only growing in importance in today’s world of AI. How ironic, then, that The World Viewed, which conceives the world projected on screen as a “world past,” was itself rejected by critics as an antiquated thing of the past upon its publication in 1971.
Countering such initial rejections, a number of recent and forthcoming publications project The World Viewed into the future, and Arnaud Desplechin’s new film, Spectateurs! is an explicit homage to The World Viewed. This conference is occasioned both by this film and by the publication of a collection edited by Jeroen Gerrits, entitled Cavell’s Ontology of Film: The World Viewed After Half a Century (forthcoming with Anthem Press in September 2025), which takes to heart Cavell’s own retrospective comment on the composition of The World Viewed,”—uttered in Paris at a conference organized 25 years ago by Sandra Laugier and Marc Cerisuelo: “My sense was of writing as an emissary from another, foreign time, whether from the past or from a missed future is not clear...”
Continuing this tradition of projecting ideas into new contexts, across languages, and over time, this conference seeks to explore the virtual life of TheWorld Viewed.
SCHEDULE
9:15: Opening Remarks
Sandra Laugier (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Jeroen Gerrits (Binghamton University, SUNY, Directeur d’études invité FMSH)
9:30-11:15: Panel 1 (Moderator: Sandra Laugier)
Marc Cerisuelo (Université Gustave Eiffel): « Importance de la projection. »
Jean-Michel Frodon (Sciences Po): « Des voies de pensée : évolutions contemporaines du documentaire à la lumière de Stanley Cavell. »
11:15-11:30 Break
11:30-13:15: Panel 2 (Moderator: Jeroen Gerrits)
Élise Domenach (Ecole Nationale Supérieure Louis-Lumière): « Le cinéma retrouvé. Reconnaissance, répétition et soin dans La Projection du monde, dans Las Chicas están bien (Arana, 2023) et dans Volveréis (Trueba, 2024). »
Paola Marrati (Johns Hopkins University): “The Time of the World Viewed”
13:15-14:30 Lunch
14:30-16:15: Panel 3 (Moderator: Thibaut de Saint Maurice)
Piergiorgio Donatelli (Sapienza Università di Roma): “Modernist Entanglements in The World Viewed”
Sandra Laugier (Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne): “Film Lovers. Popular Culture as Experience”
16:15-16:30 Break
16:30-18:15: Panel 4 (Moderator: Piergiorgio Donatelli)
Jeroen Gerrits (Binghamton University, SUNY, FMSH): “The Return of The World Viewed in Twin Peaks – The Return”
Hugo Clémot (Université Gustave Effeil): “The World Viewed and TV Series”
Registration will close on Monday, 26 May at 9:00 a.m. Please register by following this link.