Staff Profile

I'm Head of the Philosophy Subject, and chair of the philosophy Learning and Teaching Committee. I also work with our Philosophy Degree Programme Director Dan Koczy on admissions.

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

I was promoted to lecturer in 2019, Senior Lecturer in 2023, and became Head of Subject in 2021.

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).

• Authored Book

  • Smith K, Overy S. Listening to the Unconscious: adventures in popular music and psychoanalysis. London: Bloomsbury, 2023.

• Book Chapter

  • 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.