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 Criticism, Philosophy and Literature, Film 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
Ph.D., Boston University
Publications
"'I'm Not Surprised, But...': Knowingness and Moral Judgment"
2025accepted by Philosophy and Rhetoric
"Ideological Rug-Pulling: Race, Reds, and Red Herrings in Jordan Peele's Us"
2024forthcoming 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”
2022Philosophy and Literature 46.1
Reprinted with an added section on Ben Marcus in Literature and Its Language: Philosophical Aspects, ed. Garry L. Hagberg (Palgrave Macmillan, 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”
2012Creative Works
"Or Merely to Insulate"
2024forthcoming on Gargoyle Online 9