Noël Carroll

Noël Carroll (born 1947) is an American philosopher and a leading figure in contemporary philosophy of art.^[1] Carroll is primarily recognized for his contributions to the philosophy of film, particularly as a proponent of cognitive film theory. In addition to his work in film philosophy, he has published on topics such as journalism, philosophy of art, theory of media, and philosophy of history. ^[2] Since 2012, he has held the position of distinguished professor of philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center.^[3]

• B.A., Philosophy, Hofstra University, 1969
• M.A., Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, 1970
• M.A., Cinema Studies, New York University, 1974
• M.A., Philosophy, University of Illinois Chicago, 1976
• Ph.D., Cinema Studies, New York University, 1976 (thesis title: "An In-Depth Analysis of Buster Keaton's The General")
• Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Illinois Chicago, 1983

Carroll holds two PhDs, one in cinema studies and the other in philosophy. From 1972–1988, he worked as a journalist covering film, theater, performance, and fine art for publications such as the Chicago Reader, Artforum, In These Times, Dance Magazine, SoHo Weekly News, and The Village Voice. Many of these early articles have been collected in his 2011 book Living in an Artworld.^[4] He has also written five documentaries.^[5]

One of Carroll's most well-known books is The Philosophy of Horror, or, Paradoxes of the Heart (1990). It is an examination of the aesthetics of horror fiction (in novels, stories, radio and film).^[6] The book's introduction notes Carroll wrote Paradoxes of the Heart in part to convince his parents that his lifelong fascination with horror fiction was not a waste of time.^[7] Another notable book by Carroll is Mystifying Movies (1988), a critique of the ideas of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, and the semiotics of Roland Barthes, which has been credited with inspiring a shift away from the "psycho-semiotic Marxism" that had dominated film studies and film theory in American universities since the 1970s.^[8]

Carroll was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002^[9] for his research in philosophy of dance.^[10]

He was named the sixth-most influential philosopher of art since 1945 by the Philosophical Gourmet Report.^[11]

• Monroe C. Beardsley Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Temple University
• Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center
• Former president of the American Society for Aesthetics

Carroll is the author of more than one hundred articles and other works:

• Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1988.
• Mystifying Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory, New York, Columbia University Press, 1988.
• The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart, New York, Routledge, 1990.
• Theorizing The Moving Image, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• A Philosophy of Mass Art, New York, Oxford University Press, 1998.
• Interpreting The Moving Image, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction, New York, Routledge, 1999.
• Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• Engaging The Moving Image, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2003.
• Comedy Incarnate: Buster Keaton, Physical Humor and Bodily Coping, Malden, Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
• The Philosophy of Motion Pictures, Malden, Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
• On Criticism, London, Routledge, 2009.
• Art in Three Dimensions, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Narrative, Emotion, and Insight, with John Gibson, Penn State University Press, 2011.
• Living in an Artworld: Reviews and Essays on Dance, Performance, Theater, and the Fine Arts in the 1970s and 1980s, Louisville, KY: Chicago Spectrum Press, 2012.
• Humour: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014.
• Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Literature, with John Gibson, Routledge, 2016.
• Arthur Danto’s Philosophy of Art: Essays, Boston, Brill, 2021.
• Classics in the Philosophy of Art, Oxford, Oxford University Press, in preparation.

• Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies (edited with David Bordwell), Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
• Theories of Art Today, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.
• Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures (edited with Jinhee Choi), Malden, Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
• Philosophy in the Twilight Zone (edited with Lester Hunt), Oxford, Blackwell, 2009.
• The Poetics, Aesthetics and Philosophy of Narrative (edited with an introduction by Noël Carroll), Oxford, Blackwell, 2009.

• Hume's Standard of Taste, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Winter, 1984), pp.181-194

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

• Mario Slugan, Noël Carroll and Film: A Philosophy of Art and Popular Culture. Bloomsbury, 2019.

• Phil Papers
• Carroll's archive on the CUNY Philosophy Commons
• Noël Carroll at IMDb