Email Email ben_roth2@emerson.edu

Ben Roth's research focuses on the philosophy of art (especially literature and film), continental philosophy (Heidegger and existentialism, broadly construed), and the role that narrative plays in understanding and self-constitution.  His articles have been published in the European Journal of Philosophy, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art CriticismPhilosophy and LiteratureFilm and Philosophy, and numerous other journals and edited volumes.  Beyond his scholarly work, he has published more than two dozen (usually very) short stories, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and some public-facing cultural criticism.  He studied philosophy and English at Williams College, received his PhD from Boston University, and has also held fellowships at the University of Cambridge and the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.  Before coming to Emerson, he taught philosophy and writing at Tufts and at Harvard, where he was awarded certificates of excellence for both in-person and online teaching by the Bok Center.  At Emerson, he has taught courses on Narrative Ethics, Heidegger, Philosophy and Film on the Nature of Reality, Social Contract Theory and the Art World, Existentialisms, and Sophomore Honors.

About

  • Department Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies
  • Since 2023

Education

B.A., Williams College
Ph.D., Boston University

Publications

"'I'm Not Surprised, But...': Knowingness and Moral Judgment"

2025

accepted by Philosophy and Rhetoric

"Ideological Rug-Pulling: Race, Reds, and Red Herrings in Jordan Peele's Us"

2024

forthcoming in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, special issue on The Art and Aesthetics of Capitalism, Fall 2024

Review of "The Proustian Mind," edited by Anna Elsner and Thomas Stern (Routledge, 2023)

2024

“On Wittgenstein, Lydia Davis, and Other Uncanny Grammarians”

2022

“Can Trees Care?: The Overstory and Rorty’s Ideal of Inspirational Literature”

2022

“Tenet, Climate Change, and the Misdirection of Interpretation: Or, Does Christopher Nolan Not Know Who the Bad Guys Are?”

2022

“A Work of Art Outside the Age of Instagram: Visiting Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field”

2020

“Reading from the Middle: Heidegger and the Narrative Self”

2018

“The Abetment of Nihilism: Architectural Phenomenology’s Ethical Project”

2018

“How Sartre, Philosopher, Misreads Sartre, Novelist: Nausea and the Adventures of the Narrative Self”

2015

“Confessions, Excuses, and the Storytelling Self: Rereading Rousseau with Paul de Man”

2012

Creative Works

"Or Merely to Insulate"

2024

forthcoming on Gargoyle Online 9

"Strawberry Fields Forever"

2024

"A Brief Excerpt from the History of Tobacco"

2024

"The Lost Hand"

2024

"And a Little Less"

2024

Blink-Ink 55.

Meno's Dream

2023

“But Meaning”

2023

“The Imperative of Protest”

2023

“So Many”

2023

“An Inspection”

2023

“Oh Shit”

2022

“The Untranslated Section”

2022

“Rebecca Rebecca”

2022

Bodega Magazine 117 (nominated for a Pushcart Prize)

“Roko’s Wager”

2022

“The Great Dying”

2022

“Haven’t Talked”

2021

“Fade In”

2021

“Veterinarians”

2021

“I Like Big Boats” and “A Truth Universally Acknowledged”

2021

Five Fictions

2021

“The Minotaur’s Rebellion”

2021

“The Three Lines Not Written”

2021

“That Website”

2020

“So Many Illusions”

2019

“But I Do Not Know What”

2018

“Maybe You Misunderstand”

2017

“Concerning Wittgenstein’s 284th Philosophical Investigation”

2017

Publications

"Gretel and the Great War and Stringing Stories into a Novel"

2024

“Harvard Does Not Care About Teaching – or Teachers”

2021

Review essay on Antkind by Charlie Kaufman

2020

“The Philosophical Comedy of Adam Ehrlich Sachs”

2019

Recommendation Flowchart for Philosophical Novels

2019

featured on Daily Nous, Open Culture, and Literary Hub; shared thousands of times

“Harvard Fails the Humanities”

2018

“Buzzati in Every Bookstore”

2018

3:AM Magazine

Reprinted in Short Stories for Students 51 (Gale, 2021)

“Against Readability”

2017

The Millions (one of the site's most read essays of the year)

“Poetry, Jarmusch Style”

2017