David H. Fleming (Sterling University)

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)montagethis 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).