In Time, Existential Presence and the Cinematic Image, Sam B. Girgus relates Laura Mulvey's theory of 'delayed cinema' to ideas on time and the relationship to the other in the writings of Jean-Luc Nancy, Emmanuel Levinas and Julia Kristeva, among others. The sustained tension in film between, in Mulvey's phrase, 'stillness and the moving image' enacts a drama of existential emergence. The stillness of the framed image in relation to the moving image opens 'free' cinematic time and space for (...) a fresh engagement with crucial ethical and cultural issues. With close readings of films such as The Bicycle Thieves, Two Days, One Night, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, The Revenant and The Age of Innocence, this book proposes a fresh approach to reading film in the context of emerging existential presence and the ethical imperative. (shrink)

Introduction : time, film, and the ethical vision of Emmanuel Levinas. American transcendence : Levinas and a short history of an American idea in film -- Frank Capra and James Stewart : time, transcendence, and the other -- The changing face of American redemption : Henry Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, and Denzel Washington -- Sex, art, and Oedipus : The unbearable lightness of being -- Fellini and La dolce vita : documentary, decadence, and desire -- Antonioni and L'avventura : (...) transcendence, the body, and the feminine. (shrink)

From its beginning, film set forth a new scene for ethical and moral engagement. Formore than a century, film’s frame and image have opened fresh space for enactingethical and moral conflicts and dilemmas. To scholars and critics such as André Bazin, itbecame apparent that in film matters of aesthetics influence ethical and moral questions. As Dudley Andrew says: ‘In cinema, aesthetic issues leadimmediately to moral ones’ .Today, the connection between aesthetic and ethical issues in film acquires newmeaning from the relationship (...) between time and ethics as described so differently byGilles Deleuze, Paul Ricoeur, and Emmanuel Levinas. While only Deleuze directlyaddresses and discusses cinema, the work of all three on the relationship of time andethics to a variety of issues – movement, space, otherness, identity, selfhood, andnarrative – also pertains to and informs the interaction between aesthetic and ethicalissues in film. Indeed, Deleuze and Ricoeur contrive compelling theories, concepts, andoperations concerning time, movement and narrative that facilitate film’s participation inethical discourse. From a Levinasian perspective, their work provides tools and meansfor relating film and Levinasian ethical language to each other. Individually andcollectively, Deleuze, Ricoeur, and Levinas seek a discordant and disruptive temporalorder for re-engaging ethical and moral exigencies and investing new ideas and freshimagination in a revivified ethical debate. In this debate, aesthetic issues and ethicalissues in film continue the process of mutual regeneration. (shrink)

In his philosophy of ethics and time, Emmanuel Levinas highlighted the tension that exists between the "ontological adventure" of immediate experience and the "ethical adventure" of redemptive relationships-associations in which absolute responsibility engenders a transcendence of being and self. In an original commingling of philosophy and cinema study, Sam B. Girgus applies Levinas's ethics to a variety of international films. His efforts point to a transnational pattern he terms the "cinema of redemption" that portrays the struggle to connect to (...) others in redeeming ways. Girgus not only reveals the power of these films to articulate the crisis between ontological identity and ethical subjectivity. He also locates time and ethics within the structure and content of film itself. Drawing on the work of Luce Irigaray, Tina Chanter, Kelly Oliver, and Ewa Ziarek, Girgus reconsiders Levinas and his relationship to film, engaging with a feminist focus on the sexualized female body. Girgus offers fresh readings of films from several decades and cultures, including Frank Capra's _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_, Federico Fellini's _La dolce vita_, Michelangelo Antonioni's _L'avventura_, John Huston's _The Misfits_, and Philip Kaufman's _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_. (shrink)

Biobanks are currently archiving human materials for medical research at a hitherto unprecedented rate. These valuable resources will be essential for developing ‘personalized’ medicines and for a better understanding of disease susceptibilities. However, for such scientific advances to benefit everyone, it is crucial that biobanks recruit donations from all sections of the community. Unfortunately, other initiatives, such as transplant programmes, have clearly demonstrated that ethnic minorities are under-represented. Here we suggest that this issue deserves serious consideration to avoid biobanks evolving (...) into ethnically biased archives which unwittingly promote race-specific research. Specifically, this necessitates research ethics committees engaging in a re-assessment of the relative merits of individual personal sovereignty and the common good. (shrink)

We introduce a dynamic model for evolutionary games played on a network where strategy changes are correlated according to degree of influence between players. Unlike the notion of stochastic stability, which assumes mutations are stochastically independent and identically distributed, our framework allows for the possibility that agents correlate their strategies with the strategies of those they trust, or those who have influence over them. We show that the dynamical properties of evolutionary games, where such influence neighborhoods appear, differ dramatically from (...) those where all mutations are stochastically independent, and establish some elementary convergence results relevant for the evolution of social institutions. (shrink)

Patient centred diagnosis is best practised through shared decision making; an iterative dialogue between doctor and patient, whichrespects a patient’s needs, values, preferences, and circumstances. -/- Shared decision making for diagnostic situations differs fundamentally from that for treatment decisions. This has important implications when considering its practical application. -/- The nature of dialogue should be tailored to the specific diagnostic decision; scenarios with higher stakes or uncertainty usually require more detailed conversations.