23/06/2026

The Film-Phil Lisbon Seminars: David H. Fleming

July's Film-Phil Lisbon Seminar will be led by our visiting researcher David H. Fleming (Sterling University) who will talk about "The Deaths, Dao, and Dialectical Afterlives of Marx and Confucius on Film: Excerpts and Commentary on a Venn Videographic Diptych".

Abstract This seminar presents excerpts and contextualising discussion of a videographic diptych examining the extended screen afterlives of global philosophers—predominantly Confucius and Marx—from vastly different times and places who nevertheless converge in surprising ways. The first work, The Dialogues and Dao of Screen Confucius(es): Regarding the Lives, Deaths, and Dialectical Afterlives of China’s Paramount Film Philosopher(s) (TDADOSC hereafter) bodies forth calls to embrace non-Western gestures of Sino-thought to disrupt the dominance of Western-centric media theory. Entering into creative dialogue with Daoist ethico-aesthetic practices, TDADOSC employs formal montage and material remixing to build and transmit a virtual image of Daoist-infused thought as both method and object. Fleming will share excerpts of this ‘fractalactic’ work which is entirely (re)composed of decomposed film-philosophy screenworks about Confucius, including: Kǒng Fūzǐ (Fei Mu, 1940), Kǒng Zǐ (Zhang Xinjian and Liu Ziyun, 1991), Kǒng Zǐ (Hu Mei, 2010), Kǒng Zǐ (Han Gang, 2011), Lǎozǐ Chūguān (Chenyun Ma, 2014), Diǎnliàng diǎnzhú de Zhōngguó (2021), and Dāng Mǎkèsī Yùjiàn Kǒngfūzǐ (Li Yuesheng, 2023). 

Fleming will also present work-in-progress excerpts of TDADOSC’s companion piece, to be completed during his RSE supported short residency with the FILM AND DEATH project in June-July 2026. Tentatively entitled Screen Spectres of Marx: (De)mediation-(De)monstration-(De)montage this second mosaic film is similarly composed of scenes and moments from a series of films and digital media featuring Marx which include: Год как жизнь/Year as Long as Life(1966); Monty Python’s Flying Circus (BBC, 1970) Sweet Movie (Dušan Makavejev, 1974), News from Ideological Antiquity (Alexander Kluge, 2008); Marx Reloaded (Jason Barker, 2011), The Limehouse Golem (Juan Carlos Medina, 2016), Der junge Karl Marx (Raoul Peck, 2017), Karl Marx: Der deutsche Prophet (Stephan Schneider, 2018), Miss Marx (Susanna Nicchiarelli, 2020), and Dead Men Talking (Brandon Vogt, 2025). The Marx essay specifically conjures the spirit of Marxist thought to frame the still labouring dead philosopher, exercising the remediation of his image as an icon and idol in creative dialogue with Jacques Derrida’s seminal work on the haunting Spectres of Marx(1993). The remixed combination is designed to phenomenologically gesture to an evental spirit behind or beyond the actual images. The absent-present images of thought that these two films constellate hopefully transform the Venn diptych into a virtual triptych. 

Bio David H. Fleming is a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at the University of Stirling. His research straddles theoretical and practical aspects of film philosophy, and gravitates around the intersectionalities of Screens, Thinking, and Worlds—the name of the Edinburgh University Press book series he is co-founding editor of. He is the co-author, with William Brown, of Infinite Ontologies of the Chthulustream: Posthumanism and Racial Capital in Contemporary Streaming Media (2025) and The Squid Cinema From Hell (2020). He authored Chinese Urban Shi-nema (2020) with Simon Harrison and is the author of Cinematically Rendering Confucius: Chinese Film Philosophy and the Efficacious Screen-Play (2025) and Unbecoming Cinema (2017). His ‘fractalacitc’ essay films Waking/Examined-After/Lives (2026), Danse Macabre (2025), and Hiber-nation (2024) are currently open access via the [In]Transition and Screenworks journals. 

This will be an in-person session and will be held on July 1, 2026, at 17:00 WEST in room A310 of NOVA FCSH (Berna Campus).

Film and Death
Film and Death
  • About
    • Background and key aims
    • Overview
    • Team
    • Advisory Board
    • Related projects
    • References
  • Film-Phil Seminars
  • Knowledge Map
  • Outreach
    • Conferences
    • Reading Groups
    • Media
  • Publications
    • Articles
    • Books
  • VIDEOS
  • Blog
  • Job openings
  • Contact

Blog

Tags
Aesthetics Alain Resnais Alfred Hitchcock Animation anime Anna Elsner Anti-image Architecture and Cinema Archive Artistic Studies Bande Dessinée Bárbara Bergamaschi Béla Tarr Bernd Herzogenrath Bill Morrison Book Discussion Byron Davies Call Call for Papers Call for Works Calls Catherine Malabou Catherine Wheatley Cátia Rodrigues Chantal Akerman Christian Petzold Christine Reeh-Peters Cían Ó Donnchadha Cinema Journal of Philosophy Cinema Studies CJPMI Conceptual Knowledge Map Conferences Corey P. Cribb Cristóbal Escobar Daniel Conway David Ferragut David H. Fleming David Lynch Davide Sisto Death and Technology Death in the Eyes 2 Death-Image Deleuze Derrida Diana Neiva Disappearence End-of-life care Events Farshad Zahedi Félix Guattari Female Biopic FIlm Film and Death Film Genres Film Philosophy Film Studies Film-Phil Seminar Gilles Deleuze Grief Gülce Zeynep Bektaş Ingrid Rodrigues Gonçalves Jacques Derrida Jaime Pena Jakob A. Nilsson James Williams Jamieson Webster Japan Jean-Marc Rochette Jonathan Glazer Kanen Barad Lacrimae Rerum Laurence Kent Lucas Ferraço Nassif Lucy Bolton Manoel de Oliveira Marc Cerisuelo Marco Grosoli Media Studies Memory Michael Cholbi Michael Haneke Mortality Muhammad Haris Natacha Gallucci Nélio Conceição New Queer Cinema Open Call Outi Hakola Palliative Care Paolo Taviani Patrícia Castello Branco Patricio Guzmán Pedro Inock Performance Philosophy of Cinema Philosophy of Death Posthumanism Publications Queer Post-Cinema Queer Studies Reading Group Research Grant Robert Sinnerbrink Salomé Lamas Seán Cubbit Short-Term Residencies Slavoj Žižek Slow Cinema Stanley Cavell Star Biopic Susana Viegas Swan Songs Testament Films Thanatology Thomas E. Wartenberg Thomas Lamarre Tiago Cravidão Time-Image Vanessa Freerks Vasco Baptista Marques Video Videoart Violence Visiting Researcher Walter Benjamin Workshop
07/08/2026

“Swan Songs: Philosophical Reflections on Death, Time, and Memory in Testament Films” is out now!

We are pleased to announce the completion of the Special Issue “Swan Songs: Philosophical Reflections on Death, Time, and Memory in Testament Films”, guest edited by Vasco Baptista Marques and Susana Viegas for Arts. The Special Issue brings together seven original articles examining testament films from a philosophical perspective. Rather than approaching filmmakers’ final works merely as […]
06/08/2026

New Open Access publication by Susana Viegas

We are pleased to share that the book chapter “Derrida on Cinema’s Spectral Images: Time, Repetition, and Belief” by PI Susana Viegas is now available in Open Access through the publisher Brill. Published in “Derrida and Film Studies”, edited by Kamil Lipiński and Andrzej Marzec (Brill, 2025), the chapter explores Jacques Derrida’s reflections on cinema […]
06/08/2026

Join us at the Goethe-Institut Portugal for the cycle “Falar sobre a morte (nunca matou ninguém)”!

Organized by the Goethe-Institut Portugal, with contributions from the FILM AND DEATH team, Death Café, the association Doulas do Fim da Vida, and many other partners, the festival Falar sobre a morte (nunca matou ninguém) [Speaking About Death (Never Killed Anyone)] will open on September 17 at 5:00 pm with the interactive sound installation Memorial […]
03/08/2026

Join Anderson Santos and Lucas Ferraço Nassif at the Centro Português de Psicanálise

On September 1, 7:00 PM, the Centro Português de Psicanálise (R. da Assunção 7, 2º) will host a talk by Anderson Santos, moderated by Lucas Ferraço Nassif, on “Félix Guattari: Psicanálise e o Paradigma Ético-Estético”. This presentation will be in Portuguese. This presentation addresses the shift initiated by Félix Guattari within psychoanalysis, as he proposes […]
1234…45
Hosted by
Supported by

Funded by the European Union (ERC, FILM AND DEATH, 101088956). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

DESIGN