Psyches, Personae, and Characters:
Human Selves in Film
Monday, October 6, to Friday, October 10, 2025
Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA
A series of events on the self in film especially as it relates to concerns of faith.
Students, faculty, staff, and community are invited to attend any of these events.
All events are FREE admission.
Event Schedule
Monday, October 6, 7 pm
Compelling Cinematic Characters: A Faculty Panel on Film Selves
- Danielle Layne (Philosophy, Gonzaga University)
- Karen Petruska (Communications, Gonzaga University)
- Wayne Pomerleau (Philosophy Emeritus, Gonzaga University)
- Tyler Tritten (Philosophy, Gonzaga University)
Tuesday, October 7, 7 pm
STUDENT PANEL: Human Selves in Film
PROPOSALS INVITED SHORTLY: Interested in ideas as they appear in popular movies and TV series? Want an opportunity to share your thoughts about movie and TV ideas in a public forum and earn some cash in the process?
As part of the Faith, Film, and Philosophy 2025 series, the Gonzaga Faith & Reason Institute is organizing a panel of student presentations on the theme Psyches, Personae, and Characters: Human Selves in Film. The presentations should explore the depiction of selves or characters in particular films in a way that draws out broadly philosophical themes. Panelists selected for inclusion will each receive a $75 award after completing the event.
Wednesday, October 8, 7 pm
Now Where Was I?: The (In)Capable Self in the Films of Christopher Nolan
Joel Mayward (George Fox University)
Christopher Nolan is undoubtedly one of the most successful and creative filmmakers working today. From the non-chronological plot structures of Memento, The Prestige, and Dunkirk, to the imaginative time-bending sci-fi action worlds of Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet, to the timely moral ambiguities within the Dark Knight trilogy (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises) and Nolan’s neo-noir psychological thrillers (Following, Insomnia), all leading up to the historic award-winning biopic, Oppenheimer, time, narrative, and identity are themes woven throughout Nolan’s filmography. Though his films are noticeably lacking in representations of religion or references to God, Nolan's postsecular cinema nevertheless contains valuable theological and philosophical insights. This paper suggests that Nolan's films can and should be considered works of cinematic philosophical theology—they are doing theology and philosophy through the medium of film as they explore what it means to be human in relation to the transcendent. Every single Nolan film deliberately addresses the subjective nature of human identity and self-understanding. Indeed, the nature of the human self is an essential concern for Nolan—in interviews about his films, he regularly mentions a desire to explore the “subjective” human experience or the relationship between “objectivity” and “subjectivity.” By drawing upon the perspectives of St. Augustine of Hippo and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, we can trace a cinematic theological anthropology through Nolan’s films: what it means to be human is to be a wounded-yet-capable self.
Thursday, October 9, 7 pm
Inescapable Moral Horizons: Kieslowski's Blue and Charles Taylor on the Self in Moral Space
Tom Hibbs (Baylor University)
Toward the end of the film Red, the last in the Three Colors trilogy from Krzysztof Kieslowski (1941-96), the main character, Valentine, says, "I feel something important is happening around me." Many of the films by the acclaimed Polish director feature characters who realize that, as the moral philosopher Charles Taylor puts it, "something incomparably important is involved" in their deliberations and choices. In the specific political and social context of late 20th-century Poland, Kieslowski's films attempt to recover and depict what Taylor calls "inescapable moral horizons." Perhaps its most dramatic depiction occurs in Blue, the first film in the trilogy. The story of Julie, Blue’s main character, illustrates the many ways in which a self that is "free from all frameworks" is in the grips of an "appalling identity crisis." Through the course of the film, as Julie recovers her connection to others, the film also demonstrates the intimate connection between individual "identity and a kind of orientation" in moral space.
Friday, October 10, 7 pm
"We Are Not What Was Intended: The Failed Nihilism of David Fincher's Seven."
Vernon W. Cisney (Gettysburg College)
David Fincher's 1995 film, Seven, ends on a notoriously bleak note. Driven by a religious fanaticism, John Doe has completed his 'masterpiece' of illustrating the destructive nature of the seven deadly sins by luring Detective Mills into assisting with his plan. 'He wins,' as Detective Somerset says. I argue, to the contrary, that Doe does not, in fact, 'win,' that his nihilistic program ultimately fails because it is predicated upon a contradiction, that Doe's project requires a selfless servant as its executor, and Doe, as we learn, fails in this respect. Doe's interpretation of his calling is driven by a flawed understanding of the Christian ethic of kenoticism, the injunction of self-emptying at the core of the Christian message. I use the work of Søren Kierkegaard to articulate a more accurate understanding of the kenotic ethic, one in which the self is not annihilated (as Doe understands it), but is actualized authentically in the mode of divine love.
Featured Speakers
Joel Mayward
Joel Mayward is Assistant Professor of Christian ministries, theology, and the arts at George Fox University. His areas of academic and teaching expertise include Christian ministry leadership, theological aesthetics, contextual theology, theology and philosophy in film, liberation theologies, continental philosophical theology, and the spiritual formation of youth and young adults. In addition to books on church ministry, Joel is the author of The Dardenne Brothers' Cinematic Parables: Integrating Theology, Philosophy, and Film (Routledge, 2022) and the forthcoming Cinematic Transcendence: Theology and the Films of Christopher Nolan (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2025). For several years he has been a professional freelance film critic as a member of the Online Film Critics Society and a “Tomatometer-approved critic” for Rotten Tomatoes. He also runs a film criticism website, cinemayward.com.
Tom Hibbs (Philosophy, Baylor University)
Thomas Hibbs, Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and Dean Emeritus at Baylor University, is a prolific Catholic author, speaker, philosopher, and university administrator. His research and teaching focus on moral philosophy and aesthetics. He has published eight books, the most recent of which is Theology of Creation: Ecology, Art, and Laudato Si’ (University of Notre Dame Press, 2023), as well as many scholarly and popular articles, and has delivered lectures across the U.S. and abroad.
Vernon W. Cisney
Vernon W. Cisney is chair and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and is a contributing faculty member in philosophy and cinema and media studies and Jewish studies at Gettysburg College. Cisney coedited The Way of Nature and the Way of Grace: Philosophical Footholds on Terrence Malick's Tree of Life (Northwestern, 2016), and has published papers and book chapters on filmmakers such as David Fincher and Paul Schrader.
Contact
If you have any questions regarding the Faith, Film, and Philosophy 2025 Series, please contact David Calhoun, Director of the Gonzaga Faith & Reason Institute, at faithandreason@gonzaga.edu.