Dr Keith Crome
Interim Head of History, Politics and Philosophy
My profile
Biography
I’ve taught philosophy for longer than I’ve done any other job, and I still enjoy it. Studying philosophy changed my life by changing my outlook on the world. I took up philosophy because I thought there was something wrong with the world and the way things are; I still do. I don’t look to philosophy to provide consolation for the way things are, but to allow me to understand how things were once different to the way they now are, and that consequently the way things are can be changed.
I enjoy cycling (although I don’t cycle as much now as I used to), and I enjoy spending time with my children.
Words of wisdom
Read at night, and go south in winter!
Academic and professional qualifications
BA (Hons) English and History of Ideas
MA English Literature (Critical Theory)
PhD (Philosophy)
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Other academic service (administration and management)
Education Lead, Department of History, Politics and Philosophy
External examiner roles
External Examiner, Philosophy Programme, American University of Greece
External Assessor, Philosophy Programme, Roehampton University
External Assessor, Philosophy Programme Revalidation, Nottingham Trent University
External Examiner, MLitt Philosophies of Creativity and Imagination, University of Dundee
Editorial Board membership
Member of the editorial collective, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology
Membership of professional associations
President of the British Society for Phenomenology
Teaching
Why do I teach?
I teach to enable students to realise their own ambitions and to help provide them with the philosophial ideas to change the world.
How I’ll teach you
With passion for philosophy and a desire to learn from what you say
Why study…
Philosophy is an empowering discipline. By providing you with a critical knowledge of the fundamental ideas that have shaped our world, it inspires you to challenge those ideas and to change the world.
Postgraduate teaching
Contemporary Interpretations of Plato (MA)
Subject areas
Philosophy
Supervision
My own research is concerned with the appropriation and use of Greek philosophy in 20th century French philosophy and with the philosophy of education. I would be particularly interested in supervising doctoral work in the areas of 20th century French philosophy, political philosophy and the philosophy of education.
Postgraduate Supervision completed:
Patricia Farell (2010) - Cognition and Artifice in the Writings of Gilles Deleuze
Ruth Farrar (2012) - Loneliness, Storytelling and Community in Performance: The Climate of the House Un-American Activities Committee’s America in Selected Plays of O’Neill, Donleavey and Gilroy
Nicholas Aldridge (2014) - The Arrival of Mimesis and Methexis in the Enquiries of Jean-Luc Nancy
Dominic Kelly (2014) - Philosophy and Poetry: The Meaning of History in Heidegger’s Thought
Nicola Crosby (2014) Symbol and Allegory in the Work of Immanuel Kant
Maxime Lallement (2016) - Toward a New Understanding of Biopolitics: Rethinking the Notion of Norm in the work of Michel Foucault
Leda Channer (2017) - Un-working Hegel: Reading Jean-Luc Nancy
Matthew Barnard (2018) Heidegger’s Conception of Freedom 1927 - 1930: Guilt, Transcendence, Truth
Albert Yates (2018) A Theory of Addiction Founded on Ancient Greek Philosophy
Postgraduate Supervision in progress
Yaron Golan The Cooperative Character: Reinventing Community
Dominic Barron-Carter The Politics of Participation: Reconstructing Political Movements by Analysing and Redeveloping a Spatialised Notion of Participation in Radical Socio-Political Movements of the Nineteenth Century.
Research outputs
I have a longstanding interest in the relationship between contemporary philosophy and Ancient Greek Philosophy. My current research examines the role of education in the development of character. The concern with the formation of character goes back to the Greeks, and through various modifications, stretches through to the 20th century, until it is eclipsed by the idea of education as equipping students with skills. I am particularly interested in exploring how this ‘corrosion of character’ correlates with the transformation of the sense of the political in modenity.
As part of this project I am working with the Coooperative College to explore the role of character in coooerative education.
I continue to write about the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard. I have an essay on Lyotard and Kant published in Kant and the Continental Tradition, edited by Sorin Baiasu and Alberto Vanzo (Routledge, 2020)
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Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Crome, K., Williams, J. (2006) The Lyotard Reader and Guide. Columbia University Press.
Crome, K. (2004) Lyotard and Greek thought: Sophistry.
Crome, K.J. (2004) Lyotard and Greek thought: sophistry. Palgrave Macmillan.
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Chapters in books
Crome, K. (2020) 'Disputing critique: Lyotard's Kantian differend.' Kant and the Continental Tradition: Sensibility, Nature, and Religion. pp. 131-145.
Crome, K., O'Connor, P. (2019) 'The Character of Co-operation: Reflections on Education and Co-operative Learning.' Learning for a Co-operative World: Education, Social Change and the Co-operative College. UCL Institute of Education Press,
Crome, K.J. (2019) 'Disputing Critique.' Kant and the Continental Tradition: Sensibility, Nature and Religion. Routledge,
Crome, K. (2017) 'Lyotard and the Art of Seduction.' Acinemas Lyotard's Philosophy of Film. New History of Scotland,
Crome, K.J. (2013) 'Rereading Jean-François Lyotard.' In Bickis, H., Shields, R. (ed.) Rereading Jean-François Lyotard. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.,
Crome, K. (2013) 'Voicing nihilism: Lyotard on Malraux.' Rereading Jean-François Lyotard: Essays on His Later Works. pp. 155-167.
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Internet publications
Crome, K. (2022) Lyotard's Libidinal Economy: affective nihilism, capitalism and the libidinal skin. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350892996.005.
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Journal articles
Crome, K., Clark, R. (2019) 'The Space of Drawing: The Place of Art in Modern Philosophy's Thinking of the Visible.' TRACEY Drawing and Visualisation Research, 14(1) pp. 1-11.
Crome, K., O'Connor, P. (2017) 'Learning together: Foucault, Sennett and the crisis of the 'co-operative character'.' Journal of Co-operative Studies, 49(2) pp. 30-42.
Crome, K. (2013) 'GARY BANHAM OBITUARY.' JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY, 44(2) pp. 114-115.
Crome, K. (2013) 'Socrates and the sophist: The problem of polutropism in the Lesser hippias.' Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 44(2) pp. 198-212.
Crome, K. (2009) 'The nihilistic affirmation of life: biopower and biopolitics in The Will to Knowledge.' Parrhesia: a journal of critical philosophy, (6) pp. 46-61.
Crome, K. (2009) 'EMMANUEL LEVINAS AND MAURICE BLANCHOT: ETHICS AND THE AMBIGUITY OF WRITING.' JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY, 40(1) pp. 99-101.
Crome, K.J., Farrar, R., O'Connor, P. (2009) 'What is autonomous learning?.' Discourse: learning and teaching in philosophical and religious studies, 9(1)
Crome, K.J. (2008) 'Is Peter Singer’s utilitarian argument about abortion tenable?.' Richmond Journal of Philosophy, (17)
Crome, K. (2006) 'Lyotard and the Greeks: On the problem of nature in the differend.' Angelaki - Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 11(3) pp. 93-105.
Crome, K.J. (2005) 'On Socrates and Sophistry.' Richmond Journal of Philosophy, (9) pp. 11-16.
Crome, K.J. (2005) 'Descartes' Evil Demon.' Richmond Journal of Philosophy, (11) pp. 6-12.
Crome, K. (2004) 'Inheritance and originality: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard.' JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY, 35(1) pp. 108-110.
Crome, K. (2003) 'Retorsion: Jean-François Lyotard's reading of sophistry.' Southern Journal of Philosophy, 41(1) pp. 29-44.
Crome, K. (2001) 'The sophistications of philosophy: The place of sophistry in Jean-Francois Lyotard's The 'Differend'.' JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY, 32(3) pp. 277-299.
Crome, K. (1998) 'Jean-Francois Lyotard, August 10, 1924 April 21, 1998 - In memoriam.' JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY, 29(3) pp. 319-319.