Murray Smith is a film theorist and philosopher of art based at the University of Kent , where he is Professor of Philosophy, Art, and Film[1] and co-director of the Aesthetics Research Centre .[2] He is the author of three books and numerous articles on film and aesthetics, and the co-editor of three collections of essays.[3] He was President of the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image from 2014 to 2017,[4] and has served on the editorial boards of Screen ,[5] Cinema Journal , the British Journal of Aesthetics ,[6] Projections [7] and Series .[8] He has held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2005–6), and a Laurance S Rockefeller Fellowship at Princeton University ’s Centre for Human Values (2017–18).[9] He delivered a Kracauer Lecture in 2014 at the Goethe University Frankfurt ,[10] the inaugural Beacon Institute lecture in 2015,[11] and the Beardsley Lecture in 2018, sponsored by Temple University at the Barnes Foundation .[12]
Murray Smith works in cognitive film theory and analytic philosophy of film. In Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema (1995/revised edition 2022) Smith rehabilitated the idea that characters are central to our experience of narrative.[13] His approach to our emotional responses to characters draws on cognitive science and philosophy of mind.[14] Film Theory and Philosophy (1997), which Smith edited with Richard Allen, makes the wider case for an approach to film drawing on the tools of analytic philosophy .[15] In Film, Art, and the Third Culture (2017), Smith elaborates and defends the approach underpinning much of his earlier research, arguing in favour of a naturalized or ‘third cultural’ approach to aesthetics, integrating the knowledge and methods of the humanities and the sciences.[16] [17]
Smith attended Dame Alice Owen's School in Potters Bar ,[18] and studied English Language and Literature at the University of Liverpool .[19] He began his career as a film theorist as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison , where he completed his PhD under the supervision of David Bordwell . He is the younger brother of the literary historian Professor Nigel Smith , and spouse of sociologist Professor Miri Song (University of Kent).[20] Smith plays bass in the Free Range Orchestra , avatars of the New Canterbury Scene .
Murray Smith, Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).[21]
Murray Smith and Richard Allen (eds), Film Theory and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).[22]
Murray Smith and Steve Neale (eds), Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (London: Routledge, 1998).[23]
Murray Smith, Trainspotting (London: BFI Modern Classics, 2002).[24]
Murray Smith and Thomas E. Wartenberg (eds), Thinking Through Cinema: Film as Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 2006).[25]
Murray Smith, Film, Art, and the Third Culture: A Naturalized Aesthetics of Film (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).[26] 'Feeling Prufish,' Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2010, 34 (1): 261–279.
'Film Theory Meets Analytic Philosophy; Or, Film Studies And L’Affaire Sokal,' Cinema, 2010, 1 (1): 111–117.
'Film Art, Argument, and Ambiguity,' Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2006, 64 (1): 33–42.
'The Bad and the Beautiful'. Film-Philosophy. 2002, 6 (1).
'Rhetoric and Representation in Non-Fiction Film,' British Journal of Aesthetics, 2001, 41 (2): 222–225.
'Film Spectatorship and the Institution of Fiction,' Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 1995, 53 (2): 113–127.
'Regarding Film Spectatorship: A Reply to Richard Allen,' Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 1998, 56 (1): 63–65.
'The Aesthetics of Football,' with Steffen Borge and Margrethe Bruun Vaage, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 2015, 9 (2):93–96.
^ University of Kent, School of Arts staff page
^ Aesthetics Research Centre, members page
^ "Works by Murray Smith" . Philpapers . Retrieved 19 April 2019 .
^ "SCSMI Board of Advisors" . The Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image . 11 May 2012. Retrieved 19 April 2019 .
^ Editorial board of Screen
^ Editorial Board of the British Journal of Aesthetics
^ Editorial Board of Projections
^ Editorial Board of Series
^ "UCHV Announces 2017–18 Visiting Fellows" . University Center for Human Values . Retrieved 19 April 2019 .
^ "Murray Smith – From Reflex to Reflection: Experience and Explanation in the Study of Cinema" . Kracauer Lectures in Film and Media Theory . Retrieved 19 April 2019 .
^ "The Beacon Institute Lecture 2015 by Professor Murray Smith" . Youtube . 13 January 2016. Retrieved 19 April 2019 .
^ "Is There an Elitism to Valuing Aesthetics?"
^ Smith, Jeff (Summer 1997). "Review: Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema by Murray Smith". Film Quarterly . 50 : 52–53. doi :10.2307/1213453 . JSTOR 1213453 .
^ Pearce, Lynne (1996). "Review: Murray Smith, Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion and the Cinema". Screen . 37 : 415–418. doi :10.1093/screen/37.4.415 – via JSTOR.
^ Freeland, Cynthia (2000). "Review: Film Theory and Philosophy by Richard Allen, Murray Smith". The Philosophical Review . 109 : 144–147. doi :10.1215/00318108-109-1-144 – via JSTOR.
^ Levinson, Jerrold (2018). "Review: Film, Art, and the Third Culture Murray Smith". The British Journal of Aesthetics . 58 : 336–341. doi :10.1093/aesthj/ayx023 .
^ Thomson-Jones, Katherine (2018). "Review: SMITH, MURRAY. Film, Art, and the Third Culture: A Naturalized Aesthetics of Film. Oxford University Press, 2017, xiii + 294 pp., 32 b&w illust., $45.00 cloth". The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism . 76 : 356–359. doi :10.1111/jaac.12561 . S2CID 191502401 .
^ "School history book" . 25 February 2016.
^ "Professor Murray Smith, University of Kent" . Retrieved 19 April 2019 .
^ "Professor Miri Song School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research – Director of Research" . University of Kent . Retrieved 19 April 2019 .
^ Murray Smith, Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)[1]
^ Murray Smith and Richard Allen (eds), Film Theory and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997 [2]
^ Murray Smith and Steve Neale (eds), Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (London: Routledge, 1998 [3]
^ Murray Smith, Trainspotting (London: BFI Modern Classics, 2002)
^ Murray Smith and Thomas E. Wartenberg (eds), Thinking Through Cinema: Film as Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 2006)[4]
^ Murray Smith, Film, Art, and the Third Culture: A Naturalized Aesthetics of Film (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)[5]