Robert Rowland Smith
He is a regular speaker at public and private events, addressing a wide range of topics that includes philosophy, psychology, politics, and art.
Derrida and Autobiography (Cambridge University Press, 1995) was based on Smith's doctoral thesis, and won a Choice award for 'Outstanding Academic Title'.
[4] Death-Drive: Freudian Hauntings in Literature and Art (Edinburgh University Press, 2010) is an examination of Freud's metapsychological works in relation to other theorists of death including Heidegger, Durkheim and Pascal.
The book combines the genres of autobiography and philosophy in order to explore themes such as fate, love, spirituality, death, friendship, and creativity.
He has written articles for numerous other publications including Intelligent Life,[8] The Independent on Sunday, The Guardian,[9] The Observer, New Scientist,[10] Psychologies[11] and Photoworks.
Other BBC Radio and TV programmes on which Smith has appeared include Night Waves,[22] The Human Zoo,[23] The Review Show[24] and Today.
Smith has spoken to audiences in the UK, France, Norway, the United States, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, Switzerland and El Salvador on subjects including love, enlightenment, and innovation.
Other fora to which Smith has contributed include: Institute of Contemporary Arts (on Derrida), Hayward Gallery (on concepts of light), the London School of Economics (on the meaning of life), the British Library (on theories of knowledge), the Petrie Museum (on concepts of time), Off Grid (on not knowing) and the Aye Write Festival (on the philosophy of everyday life).
Smith's work is witty, inventive and intelligent - Carl Schmitt on arguing with your partner, Jacques Derrida on booking a holiday - and brilliantly shows how grounded High Theory really is.'
- Review by Curtis Silver for wired.com, 3 December 2010[34]'A friendly guide to "the meaning of life's milestones" from birth, to learning to walk, starting school and on to passing your driving test, marrying and having a mid-life crisis, retiring and dying.'
Smith provides a lucid, probing and astute overview of the death drive in Freud, but also leads the reader into strange and compelling new terrain, exploring the notion that works of art have 'an unconscious of their own'.
Rowland Smith brings new life to this grim hypothesis, tracing the rhetorical adventures of the death-drive through Freud's works and those of his defenders and adversaries.
- Maud Ellmann, Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame[37]'By approaching the perennial problems of business through a highly original set of emotionally-charged questions, Smith brings an extraordinary array of insights to the challenges of management and leadership.
- Jules Goddard, author of Uncommon Sense, Common Nonsense[38]'Practical, wise and very much based in reality, this book will make anyone running a business a more shrewd, and probably a more successful, leader.'
- Andrew Cahn, former CEO of UK Trade and Investment[38]'I regard Robert Rowland Smith as simply the most intelligent person I know.
- Guy Fraser-Sampson, Senior Fellow, Cass Business School[38]'The Reality Test' cuts through turgid corporate "leadership speak" to get the heart of the matter - it should be required reading for any aspiring leader.
