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
"Ideological Rug-Pulling in and Outside of Art"
2025accepted by the Journal of Aesthetic Education
"'I'm Not Surprised, But...': Knowingness and Moral Judgment"
2025forthcoming in Philosophy and Rhetoric 57.4
"Ideological Rug-Pulling: Race, Reds, and Red Herrings in Jordan Peele's Us"
2024Review 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)