TV-Philosophy in Action
TV-Philosophy in Action is inspired by philosopher and series-devotee Sandra Laugier’s monthly columns published in the French journal Libération. It is her contribution to the collective reflection on TV series produced by critics, theorists, and the vast mass of individual watchers who evaluate and discuss these programmes every day. The book brings together a selection of articles from Libération, as well as longer pieces, to demonstrate ‘TV-Philosophy in action’: Laugier’s response as a philosopher-viewer to a range of particularly salient TV shows from the last 20 years, and their relationship to social and political issues of our times. Arranged under a number of important themes—relating to politics, identity, and the stories we tell ourselves about our world—the book shows how TV series provide a rich resource for thinking about our lives, and places them centre-stage as works of art, and of thought, in their own right.
Sandra Laugier, a former student at the Ecole normale supérieure and at Harvard University, is Professor of Philosophy at Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. She has also held a number of visiting professorships, including those at Boston University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Max Planck Institute, Berlin. She has published extensively on ordinary language philosophy (Wittgenstein, Austin, Cavell), moral and political philosophy, gender studies and the ethics of care, popular film, and TV series, and is the author of over 30 books in total, including Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy (2013), and Politics of the Ordinary: Care, Ethics, and Forms of Life (2020). She is a columnist at the French Journal Libération, and is the translator of Stanley Cavell’s work in French.