"The Flesh of The Perceptible": The New Materialism of Leviathan. Issue 3 (October 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bowens, Max
• Is Part Of: Film-philosophy. Volume 22:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 428
• Page End: 447
• Publication Date: 2018-10
• Subjects: Leviathan -- New Materialism -- Lucien Castaing-Taylor -- Véréna Paravel -- Jane Bennett -- Ernst Karel -- Non-Anthropocentrism; Cinematography -- Periodicals; Cinematography -- Study and teaching; Journalism -- Philosophy; 791.4305
• DOI: 10.3366/film.2018.0088
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1466-4615

Abstract

Abstract : This article seeks to entangle two current philosophic praxes: New Materialism, and Sensory Ethnography. Jane Bennett has become one of New Materialism's most prominent proponents since the release of her now-seminal text, Vibrant Matter in 2010. Due to the varied ground upon which New Materialism stands (often conflated with object-oriented ontology, post-humanism, and other general turns within nonhumanism), Bennett's work will be looked at idiosyncratically, then pushed into the realm of the cinematic via an analysis of the documentary, Leviathan . Directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, this film was among the first exemplary works to emerge from the Sensory Ethnography Lab, based at Harvard University. In striving for a revitalization of ethnographic film practices, the Lab aligns itself with similarly non-anthropocentric, and non-discursive, aspects of experience to the New Materialism of Jane Bennett. By placing these two contemporary camps into conversation, this article intends to reposition them both: New Materialism as a vehicle for the Sensory Ethnographic, and the SEL as an exhibition of the kind of world Bennett's philosophy envisages. The article concludes with an assessment of the political and eco-political critiques and ramifications surrounding these works.