On Monday, March 22nd, CCGES is pleased to present a talk by Temenuga Trifonova, Assistant Professor of Film Studies in York’s Department of Film and a Centre Faculty Affiliate.

Her presentation will examine the relevance of Gianni Vattimo’s concept of pensiero debole (weak or post-foundationalist thought) to the debate around national and post-national European Cinema. The notion of pensiero debole refers to the exhaustion—but not the vanishing—of the project of modernity (the belief in reason, progress, history, the nation-state etc.) In European Cinema after 1989 Luisa Rivi relies on Vattimo’s ideas to make the argument that rather than discarding the concept of ‘national cinema’ in favor of ‘post-national cinema’ we should approach post-1989 European cinema as ‘weak’ or ‘declined’ national cinema, one that acknowledges the different ways in which transnational forces and supranational bodies are altering the borders of the nation-states in Europe. Trifonova will examine recent European films in light of Rivi’s idea of ‘weak national cinema’ in order to draw attention to some important shifts in the ways contemporary European films engage with history, national identity, and ‘European’ identity.”

Temenuga Trifonova is the author of The Image in French Philosophy (Rodopi, 2007) and European Film Theory (2009). Her articles have appeared in various film and cultural journals including Cineaste, CineAction, Film and Philosophy, SubStance, Quarterly Journal of Film and Video, Kinema, Scope, Postmodern Culture, International Studies in Philosophy, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies and in several edited collections. Trifonova taught at the University of New Brunswick and the University of California, Santa Cruz before joining York’s Film Department in 2008.

Location: 764 York Research Tower (building #95 on the map found here)
Time: 12:30-2:00 pm