Pew Center for Arts and Heritage

Get our monthly newsletter in your inbox for the latest on cultural events, ideas, conversations, and grantmaking news in Philadelphia and beyond.

Main page contents
Avital Ronell. Photo by Britt Harwood.

Questions of Practice: Avital Ronell on the Philosophy of Movement

Questions of Practice: Avital Ronell on the Philosophy of Movement

“Philosophy’s severance from performance is a myth,” says eminent philosopher Avital Ronell, reflecting on the relationship between thought and bodily motion. “It is a story that philosophers tell themselves to get away from the artifice, and the fictional and performative angles of the origin of philosophy.”

In the following excerpt from Ronell’s June 2014 talk at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, she proposes a conceptual pas de deux between two unlikely partners. She counters the prevailing notion of truth “as associated with impeded movement,” and instead begins to examine the generative potential of such tropes as the stroll, the jump, the trip, and the slip.

Watch an excerpt of Ronell’s talk below, or visit the Center’s Vimeo page to view the talk in its entirety (running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes).

Avital Ronell delivers her talk, “One Can Also Fall Upwards,” filmed at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage on June 2, 2014.

“One Can Also Fall Upwards” with Avital Ronell took place at the Center on June 2, 2014.