25 February: Vasco Baptista Marques (NOVA University Lisbon)
More details to follow (Hybrid)
Davide Sisto (University of Turin)
ABSTRACT My talk intends to focus on the topic of so-called digital immortality. In particular, it intends to analyze the birth and development of a particular neologism: namely, “thanabot,” by which we refer to the possibility of using artificial intelligence to continue actively talking to the dead. I will show how the theme of digital immortality and thanabots is inspired by a number of TV series and movies (Black Mirror, Upload, Another End, Wonderland). These have anticipated in science fiction and dystopia what is becoming real through ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence.
Davide Sisto teaches Digital Forms of Life at the University of Turin. He also teaches at the Master's program “Death Studies & the End of Life” at the University of Padua and collaborates with the University of Trieste. Specializing in the field of digital thanatology since 2014, he holds training courses on Digital Death for medical doctors and nurses, psychologists and educators all over Italy, and then offers consultancy for start-ups engaged in the areas of digital legacy. He has published numerous books translated into a variety of languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Turkish, Finnish, etc.): among them, La morte si fa social. Immortalità, memoria e lutto nell'epoca della cultura digitale (Bollati Boringhieri 2018; MIT Press 2020; Katz Editores 2022; Zigurate 2023; Passagen Verlag 2024), Ricordati di me. La rivoluzione digitale tra memoria e oblio (Bollati Boringhieri 2020; Polity Press 2021; Niin & näin 2021; Ketebe 2024), Porcospini digitali. Vivere e mai morire online (Bollati Boringhieri 2022; Fondo de Cultura Economica 2023; Katz Editores 2023), I confini dell'umano. La tecnica, la natura, la specie (Il Mulino 2023), Virtual influencer. Il tempo delle vite digitali (Einaudi 2024). In September he will publish a book entitled Vivere per sempre. L'aldilà al tempo di Chat GPT (Bollati Boringhieri).
The session is hybrid and will be held on September 24, 2025, at 15h00 WEST / 17h00 EET, at NOVA FCSH (B201) and online, via Microsoft Teams.
Note that to receive information about joining the meeting online, it is mandatory to register here.
Film-Phil Seminars
It consists of a set of monthly seminars open to the academic community and the general public.
The seminars will be delivered by team members and by invited speakers and collaborators.
P2 Close-Up on Film-Philosophical Time
2026
2025
29 January: Cristóbal Escobar (University of Melbourne), "A Classic Never Dies: On Cinematic Intensity and the Contemporary"
Online event
View more19 February: Outi Hakola (University of Helsinki), "Filming the Moment of Death”
Hybrid
View more26 March: Marc Cerisuelo (Université Gustave Eiffel and Institut Universitaire de France), "Psychopomp fictions"
Hybrid
View more16 April: Federico Rossin "How experimental cinema deals with death"
Hybrid
View more28 May: Muhammad Haris (Habib University), "Natural Language Generation and the Script for a Film on Genocide"
Online event
View more4 June: Jeremi Szaniawski (UMass Amherst), "Death, Dying, and the Death Throes (?) of Necrorealism in the Films of Alexander Sokurov and Yevgeny Yufit"
Hybrid
View more30 July: Bárbara Bergamaschi (NOVA University of Lisbon), "Eroticism, Formlessness, and Death in Tscherkassky’s Cinematic Hauntology"
Hybrid
View more24 September: Davide Sisto (University of Turin), "Thanabots. Digital immortality between sci-fi movies and reality"
Hybrid
View more15 October: Seán Cubbit
More details to follow (Hybrid)
27 November: Christine Greiner
More details to follow (Online event)
2024
18 September: Christine Reeh-Peters (Protestant University of Applied Sciences/Bochum), "Film Specters - Towards an Ethics of Film and Death"
Hybrid
View more23 October: James Williams (Deakin University), "Death, Démontage and Time in Bande Dessinée as a Precursor to Film: The Works of Jean-Marc Rochette"
Hybrid
View more20 November: Lucas Ferraço Nassif (IFILNOVA), "Where the Desertshore Was, There Should Be the Crypt"
Hybrid
View more4 December: Anna Magdalena Elsner (University of St. Gallen), "Documenting Dying or Capturing Care? The Afterlives of Palliative Care in French End-of-Life Documentaries"
Hybrid
View moreP1 Close-Up on Film-Philosophy as Metaphilosophy
2023
22 November: Robert Sinnerbrink (Macquarie University), “What is a Philosophical Reading of Film? On Film-Philosophy and Philosophical Film Criticism”
Online event
View more11 December: Jakob A. Nilsson (Örebro University), "Cinecepts: On the Articulation of Philosophical Concepts Through Audiovisual Media"
Online event
View more2024
24 January: Thomas E. Wartenberg (Mount Holyoke College), “Thoughtful Cinema: Illustrating Philosophy Through Film”
Hybrid
View more14 February: David Ferragut (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), “Matter and Mind. On philosophy in Early Cinema”
Hybrid
View more9 March: Thomas Lamarre (University of Chicago), “Half Life: Radiation and Animation”
In-person event
View more24 April: Lucy Bolton (Queen Mary University of London), “The desecration of the beautiful star: death and the female biopic”
Hybrid
View more15 May: Bernd Herzogenrath (Goethe University of Frankfurt), “The Way of All Flesh: Decasia and Death of|as Film”
Hybrid
View more17 June: Marco Grosoli (IFILNOVA), "Looking Through the Eyes of Those Who Are No Longer: Death and Cultural Politics in Leonora addio (Paolo Taviani, 2022)"
Online event
View more4 July: Catherine Wheatley (King's College London), "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow: film, mourning, and the passing of the world"
Hybrid
View more