Home > Events > Examined Life

Examined Life

Screening and dialogue with Director Astra Taylor,
one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces to Watch”

Examined Life pulls philosophy out of academic journals and classrooms, and puts it back on the streets. Featuring Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor.
In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas. Peter Singer’s thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s posh boutiques. Slavoj Zizek questions current beliefs about the environment while sifting through a garbage dump. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture’s fixation on individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West – perhaps America’s best-known public intellectual – compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be.

“Ideas beam out from Astra Taylor’s engaging new philoso-doc Examined Life; the viewer basks in the intelligence on-screen and, occasionally, soaks up the rays.”
– J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

“This film is good for your soul... Engaging... Hopeful... A must-see cinematic tonic for these confusing times.”
– Nick Dawson, Filmmaker Magazine

UBC Faculty of Education and Faculty of Arts Event
CO-SPONSORS: Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiry in Education, Digital Literacy Centre, UBC Film Society, Teacher Education Office, Centre for the Study of the Internationalization of Curriculum Studies, Critical Studies in Sexuality, Gender Performances Research and Reflection Group, Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies, and Centre for Culture, Identity and Education Departments: Language and Literacy Education, Curriculum and Pedagogy, Educational Studies Philosophy of Educational Research), English, Theatre and Film, Philosophy, SFU School of Communication and the Institute for the Humanities.