The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan (The Philosophy of Popular Culture)

As a director, writer, and producer, Christopher Nolan has substantially impacted contemporary cinema through avant garde films, such as Following and Memento, and his contribution to wider pop culture with his Dark Knight trilogy. His latest film, Interstellar, delivered the same visual qualities and complex, thought-provoking plotlines his audience anticipates. The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan collects sixteen essays, written by professional philosophers and film theorists, discussing themes such as self-identity and self-destruction, moral choice and moral doubt, the nature of truth and its value, whether we can trust our perceptions of what’s “real,” the political psychology of heroes and villains, and what it means to be a “viewer” of Nolan’s films. Whether his protagonists are squashing themselves like a bug, struggling to create an identity and moral purpose for themselves, suffering from their own duplicitous plots, donning a mask that both strikes fear and reveals their true nature, or having to weigh the lives of those they love against the greater good, there are no simple solutions to the questions Nolan’s films provoke; exploring these questions yields its own reward. Table of Contents Introduction Part 1: Moral Philosophy Chapter One: Deceit, Desire, and Mimetic Doubling in the Films of Christopher Nolan Chapter Two: “So You Can Be My ‘John G.’” Chapter Three: White Nights of the Soul Chapter Four: Love, Value, and the Human Destiny in Interstellar Part 2: Politics and Culture Chapter Five: “They Turned to a Man They Didn’t Fully Understand” Chapter Six: The Vale of Top Hats Chapter Seven: Plato, Habermas, and the Demonic Cobb Chapter Eight: “Are You Watching Closely?” Part 3: Epistemology and Metaphysics Chapter Nine: Remembering, Reminding, and Forgetting with Leonard Shelby Chapter Ten: False Tattoos and Failed Totems Chapter Eleven: Inception and Perception Chapter Twelve: Spinning Tops and Brains in Vats Part 4: Time and Selfhood Chapter Thirteen: “You Don’t Know Who You Are” Chapter Fourteen: “Memory Man” Chapter Fifteen: Engaging Otherness through Following Chapter Sixteen: We Are the Change That We Seek Selected Bibliography Index Contributors The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan collects sixteen essays written by philosophers and film theorists analyzing moral, metaphysical, epistemological, and political themes that characterize the films of Christopher Nolan