Dr Jamie Brassett

Biography

Jamie is Reader in Philosophy, Design & Innovation at University of the Arts London & Programme Research Director at Central Saint Martins. He is a Visiting Professor in the Design Department of Anhalt University of Applied Sciences (Dessau, Germany) & a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy; he is also a member of the British Academy of Management. Until February 2019, Jamie led the MA Innovation Management at CSM, a course he started in 2008.

Jamie was awarded a PhD in Philosophy from The University of Warwick (1993), producing a thesis on Deleuze & Guattari, Kant & Bachelard, Cartographies of Subjectification, supervised by Nick Land. He has been publishing philosophical work since 1991 & has spoken nationally & internationally at conferences since 1989, chairing ‘Out of Control’, the 8th International Conference on Design & Emotion in 2012. Deleuze & Design (Edinburgh University Press) co-edited with Betti Marenko, was published in June 2015 as part of the ‘Deleuze Connections’ series. His work in this volume deals with philosophy, design, innovation & complexity biology. Other recent publications focus on technology, style, fashion, scenario planning, superheroes, anticipation & speculative machines.

Jamie has also consulted for a number of commercial, public & voluntary sector organisations & is currently Principal Consultant for Studio INTO, as well as co-founder of futures agency The Swerve.

Research interests

My work currently crosses the boundaries of ontology, futures studies (especially Anticipation), creative practice, ethics & social & political design. With these specific examples to highlight:

• Creative Philosophy;
• Process Philosophy;
• Creative Ontologies;
• Designing and creative processes;
• Disruption and Complexity in Innovation and its Management;
• Spaces, heterotopias and topologies;
• Affective Ethologies;
• Philosophies of Excess;
• Superheroes.

I have recently co-written with John O’Reilly a chapter for Philosophy of Design (Springer, 2018) on the work of Roman poet, philosopher and physicist Lucretius, titled ‘Collisions, Design and The Swerve’, & a journal article on anticipation & the contemporary for the French journal Prospective et Stratégie. With my colleague and world-authority on superhero culture, Richard Reynolds, a chapter on Killgrave & Foucault's concept of biopower for a collection on comics & violence is currently in press.

Currently, I am working with Richard Reynods editing & writing for a volume on Superheroes and Excess for 'Routledge Advances in Comics Series'; & the same with John O'Reilly on a volume on Anticipation, Creativity & Design for the new 'Routledge Research in Anticipation & the Future' series.