Minerva's Night Out

Acknowledgments ix
 
Introduction: Philosophy and the Popular Arts 1
 
Section I The Philosophy of Mass Art 7
 
1 The Ontology of Mass Art 9
 
2 Modernity and the Plasticity of Perception 29
 
3 The Ties that Bind: Characters, the Emotions, and Popular Fictions 40
 
4 Character, Social Information, and the Challenge of Psychology 64
 
Section II The Philosophy of Motion Pictures 83
 
5 Movies, the Moral Emotions, and Sympathy 85
 
6 The Problem with Movie Stars 106
 
7 Cinematic Narrative 122
 
8 Cinematic Narration 133
 
9 Psychoanalysis and the Horror Film 145
 
Section III Philosophy and Popular Film 159
 
10 Philosophical Insight, Emotion, and Popular Fiction: The Case of Sunset Boulevard 161
 
11 Vertigo and the Pathologies of Romantic Love 183
 
12 What Mr Creosote Knows about Laughter 194
 
13 Memento and the Phenomenology of Comprehending Motion Picture Narration 203
 
Section IV Philosophy and Popular TV 221
 
14 Tales of Dread in The Twilight Zone: A Contribution to Narratology 223
 
15 Sympathy for Soprano 234
 
16 Consuming Passion: Sex and the City 247
 
Section V Philosophy on Broadway 267
 
17 Art and Friendship 269
 
18 Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, or The Justification of Literature 276
 
Section VI Philosophy across Popular Culture 289
 
19 The Fear of Fear Itself: The Philosophy of Halloween 291
 
20 The Grotesque Today: Preliminary Notes toward a Taxonomy 302
 
21 Andy Kaufman and the Philosophy of Interpretation 324
 
Index 348

Noël Carroll is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. A former journalist, screenwriter, and President of the American Society for Aesthetics, Carroll is the author of 16 books, including Art in Three Dimensions (2010), On Criticism (2009), The Philosophy of Motion Pictures (Blackwell, 2008), Beyond Aesthetics (2001), A Philosophy of Mass Art (1999), and Interpreting the Moving Image (1998).