The journeys of a film phenomenologist: An interview with Vivian Sobchack on being and becoming

Abstract

In this interview Vivian Sobchack, a leading film phenomenologist and Professor Emerita at UCLA, looks back at her career as a film and media scholar. She relates how she first wanted to become a novelist – as well as an astronomer – before academia and the study of film attracted her attention. She describes how she became interested in existential phenomenology, how her groundbreaking book THE ADDRESS OF THE EYE took shape, and how it has influenced film studies since its first publication 25 years ago. She also reflects on the value of phenomenology as a research method and responds to criticism of it as a philosophy that is too subjectivist and apolitical.