Staff Profile
Background
I'm Head of the Philosophy Unit, chair of the philosophy Learning and Teaching Committee, and am leader of the interdisciplinary 'Global Challenges' Module. I also work with our Philosophy Degree Programme Director Dan Koczy on admissions.
I was promoted to lecturer in 2019, and became Head of Unit in 2021.
My research interests are in psychoanalysis - particularly Freud - and the 'Philosophers of desire': Delezue and Guattari, and Lyotard's work in the 60's and 70's.
I was appointed to a teaching fellowship in Newcastle in 2016, having been an undergraduate and postgraduate in the philosophy department here. I specialise in philosophy of the unconscious and desire, situating the work of a line of thinkers from Kant to Deleuze in relation to its implications for materialism.
I have previously held a number of administrative roles, including:
Participation coordinator
Employability lead
Student Mentor Team lead
Facilitator of the Staff-Student Committee
Chair of Board of Studies
Research
My research interests are in libidinal philosophies of drive and desire and their relation to materialism, considering a line of philosophers comprising Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, Deleuze and Guattari, and Lyotard.
Much of my work has been in interdisciplinary collaborations between music and philosophy including: illustrations of the concept of desire in popular music (with Dr Kenneth Smith, Liverpool); and cybernetics and electroacoustic composition (with Dr Kelcey Swain, Bristol).
Publications
- Smith K, Overy S. The Love Detective: Cybernetic Groove Cycles and the Mysteries of Desire in Arab Strap. In: Smith K; Scotto C; Brackett J, ed. The Routledge Companion to Popular Music Analysis: Expanding Approaches. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2018.