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Terry Eagleton: An Interview

Video Data Bank

2009 00:44:19 United StatesEnglishColorMono4:3Video
Tags:
History , Interview , Memory , Philosophy , Religion/Spirituality , VDB Interviews , Visiting Artists Program

Description

In this interview, political and social theorist, Terry Eagleton (b. 1943), shares stories of his Irish upbringing and British education, and sums up his current engagement with art theory, leftist politics, and spirituality under capitalism. With reference to Henry James, Frederic Jameson, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins, among others, this interview spans a vast landscape of literature and social theory.

The conversation frames the division between liberal humanism and tragic humanism, which Eagleton describes as the basis for his text Reason, Faith, and Revolution (2010). Peppered with profound quips, this interview offers a rich primer in humanist philosophy and a salient lesson in the necessity of living well, with each other, in the present moment.

– Faye Gleisser

Interview conducted by David Raskin in February 2009, edited in 2014.

The Video Data Bank is the leading resource in the United States for videotapes by and about contemporary artists. The VDB collection features innovative video work made by artists from an aesthetic, political or personal point of view. The collection includes seminal works that, seen as a whole, describe the development of video as an art form originating in the late 1960's and continuing to the present. Works in the collection employ innovative uses of form and technology, mixed with original visual style to address contemporary art and cultural themes.

Founded in 1976 at the inception of the media arts movement in the United States, the Video Data Bank is one of the nation's largest providers of alternative and art-based video. Through a successful national and international distribution service, the VDB distributes video art, documentaries made by artists, and recorded interviews with visual artists, photographers and critics. 

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