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Dr Stacie Friend

Positions held:
  • Reader in Philosophy, Department of Philosophy
Address

Room 310, 30 Russell Square

Email
  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    Stacie Friend is a Reader in Philosophy and the Director of Education in Philosophy. She taught at Birkbeck from 2005-2007 and rejoined the department in 2014, having taught in between at Heythrop College, University of London. She previously lectured at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania (2003-05) and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow (2002-03). She received her PhD in Philosophy from Stanford University in 2002.

    Dr Friend is Editor of Analysis, the President of the British Society of Aesthetics and an organiser of the London Aesthetics Forum series of talks at the Institute of Philosophy. She is also the Director of the interdisciplinary research project 'Art Opening Minds: Imagination and Perspective in Film', funded by the Templeton Religion Trust, with Heather Ferguson (Psychology, Kent), Angela Nyhout (Psychology, Kent) and Murray Smith (Film Studies and Philosophy, Kent). She was previously a co-investigator on a three-year Leverhulme Trust research project on 'Learning from Fiction' (2018-2022).

    Stacie has been a Visiting Professor at the Collège de France (Paris), the Institut Jean-Nicod/Ecole normale supérieure (Paris), the LOGOS Research Group at the University of Barcelona and the Aesthetics Department at the University of Uppsala. She was a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow in 2013-14.


    Highlights

  • Research

    Research

    Research interests

    • Philosophy of Fiction
    • Philosophy of Language and Mind
    • Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics
  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    Supervisions within Birkbeck:
    7

    I welcome inquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in the philosophy of fiction (including literature and film), reference and proper names, imagination, and related topics.

    Current doctoral researchers

    • JENNIFER WALKER
      Nature of supervision:
      Principal Supervisor, onwards
    • KAYLEIGH GREEN
      Nature of supervision:
      Principal Supervisor, onwards
    • NEIL THORNTON
      Nature of supervision:
      Principal Supervisor, onwards
    • SAILEE KHURJEKAR
      Nature of supervision:
      Principal Supervisor, onwards
      Title of thesis:
      The Worst Race Scenario: Protecting Racial Minorities from Obscene Art
      Description:

      Nature of supervision: Principal Supervisor, Oct 2022 onwards

      Title of thesis: The Worst Race Scenario: Protecting Racial Minorities from Obscene Art

      Description: Pre-pandemic, popular art institutions such as the Tate Modern have welcomed over 6 million visitors from different societies and cultures per year. People may be empowered or marginalised by certain artistic representations. My research is situated between two often opposing commitments: The first is our commitment to art, autonomy, and the freedom of expression; and the second is our commitment to protecting minorities from harms. I provide the first scholarly examination of how obscenity, specifically obscene art, can unite these commitments. The proposal centres around social power and inequality. For example, I argue that obscene art about wealthy White men may be offensive but does not immediately warrant regulation, because White men belong to a higher social stratum. Social hierarchy can influence and change the way we view artworks. My project will show why these distinctions, which are not currently drawn, are important.

    Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

    • MAGNUS FRIED
      Nature of supervision:
      Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      Addressing Kuhn's Challenge: Conceptual Continuity and Natural Kinds
      Awarded:
      2020

    Teaching

    I teach undergraduate and post-graduate modules in the philosophy of art, philosophy of language and metaphysics.

    Teaching modules

    • Research in Practical Philosophy (SSPL158S7)
  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    Book Section

    • Friend, Stacie (2021) Fictionality in imagined worlds. In: Sedivy, S. (ed.) Art, Representation, and Make-Believe: Essays on the Philosophy of Kendall L. Walton. Routledge. pp. 25-40. ISBN 9780367370169.
    • Friend, Stacie (2016) Fiction and emotion. In: Kind, A. (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 217-230. ISBN 9780415739481.
    • Friend, Stacie (2014) Believing in stories. In: Currie, G. and Kieran, M. and Meskin, A. and Robson, J. (eds.) Aesthetics and the Sciences of Mind. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199669639.
    • Friend, Stacie (2014) Notions of nothing. In: García-Carpintero, M. and Marti, G. (eds.) Empty Representations: Reference and Non-Existence. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199647057.

    External Repositories