a quick observation for whatever it may be worth
i posted this query to list-serv in a number of different fields [narrative theory; film studies; even theology; as well as philosophy] and in general
the suggestions have not focused on work within the specific field of the responder . . . but by and large almost all the suggestions offered by philosophers have been works that more or less count as philosophy . . .
two readings of this are either that philosophy is the most hermetic of disciplines, or else that philosophy is in fact the master discipline, out of which
come the terms that then get applied elsewhere . . . i obviously incline toward the second but i find it hard not wonder about the possible relationship between the two, or whether there may be other explanations
mike
I too am a list-lurker; not a film scholar, but a psychoanalyst with a keen interest in film...
That said, it will come as no surprise that I second the inclusion of Freud, esp. Die Traumdeutung, as that was a game changer.
However, other works which reconfigured the fields in which they intervened must surely include Heidegger's Being & Time (would influential thinkers as diverse as Sartre, Dreyfus, Derrida, Foucault, Levinas, have been able to make their distinctive contributions
without it?); Marcel Mauss' The Gift (the paradoxes of gift giving are still exercising anthropologists to this day); Levi-Strauss' Structural Anthropology (Lacan would not have been Lacan without it; Derrida would not have had such a great target for his
critique of binary thought); Deleuze's Nietzsche & Philosophy (contains the seeds of much of Deleuze's later solo efforts, and his output with Guattari, as well as possibly being the inaugural text of French post-structuralism/post-Nietzschism?); W.V Quine's
Two Dogmas of Empiricism (analytic philosophy has literally never recovered); Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (again, analytic philosophy has never quite recovered, and its impact in other fileds is still being felt); Judith Butler's Gender Trouble
(gender as performative is everywhere now); another plug for psychoanalysis, Lacan's Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (no psychoanalyst, unless they are living on the moon, can practice without the shadow of Lacan over them, and Lacanians are now
a pretty big presence on the wider academic scene, and the cult of Zizek shows no signs of abating anytime soon); and finally, a cheeky inclusion, Bordwell and Thompson's Fim Art (neo-formalism is certainly how I was introduced to film studies when I took
a module as an undergrad...maybe not quite a game changer like the other texts above...but still...)
Barry
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