Friends and Strangers

A Conversation

Abstract

“I write for friends and strangers.” So writes Stanley Cavell in Little Did I Know, misquoting Gertrude Stein (who in fact wrote for herself and for strangers). Cavell long wrestled with uncertainty about how his books would be—and had been—received, with whether he could make himself understood to his readers. The friends who share his conviction that everything—art, language, autobiography—matters, and that we must try as best we can to communicate with others. The strangers whose minds are more mysterious still, but to whom he felt a duty to reach out. On the occasion of the publication of our respective books, Stanley Cavell and Film: Scepticism and Self-Reliance at the Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2019) and Stanley Cavell and The Arts: Philosophy and Popular Culture (Bloomsbury, 2020), we read one another’s work and were moved to begin a conversation. Here, we speak to each another about finding Cavell, the tricky business of interpretation and the future of Cavell studies.