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Brock Rough

About

I'm a philosopher at the University of Maryland. I work primarily on the ontology of art and games, as well as intentions and meaning, definitions of art, and philosophy of language, especially pragmatics. My dissertation work focuses primarily on the compatibility and incompatibility of artworks and games.

I recently received my Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park. I am also a graduate of Northern Illinois University (2010, M.A. in Philosophy) and Lipscomb University (2003, B.A. in Art).

Before pursuing philosophy I spent a few years making a living painting portraits.

Work

Download full CV here.

Publications

  • ``The Incompatibility of Games and Artworks'', in The Journal for the Philosophy of Games.

  • The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Games, eds. C. Thi Nguyen, Brock Rough and John Sagen, Routledge, forthcoming.

  • ``Games as Artworks'' in The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Games, eds. C. Thi Nguyen, Brock Rough, and John Sagend, Routledge, forthcoming.

  • ``Defining Games'', with C. Thi Nguyen and John Sageng, in The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Games, eds. C. Thi Nguyen, Brock Rough, and John Sagen, Routledge, forthcoming.

  • ``Videogames as Neither Video nor Games: A Negative Ontology'', in The Aesthetics of Videogames, eds. Grant Tavinor and Jon Robson, Routledge, forthcoming.

  • ``The Aesthetics of Plain and Simple'', in The Reformation Anthology, ed. J. Caleb Clanton, University of Tennessee Press, forthcoming.

Presentations

  • Invited, Canadian Philosophical Association, Why Games Are Not Art, Calgary (2016).

  • American Society of Aesthetics, Why Games Are Not Art, Savannah, Georgia (2015).

  • American Society of Aesthetics, Videogames as a Test Case for Institutional Theory, San Antonio, Texas (2014).

  • Graduate Conference in Aesthetics, Art, Meaning, and Allusion: Strengthening Hypothetical Intentionalism, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2014)

  • Invited, American Society of Aesthetics, Eastern Division, Comments on Intentionalism, Allusion, and the Demands of Inter-Subjectivity: In Response to Brock Rough, by Michael Gutierrez, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2014)

  • Invited, St. Mary's of Maryland, Why Videogame Criticism Is Hard, St. Mary's City, Maryland (2013)

  • American Society of Aesthetics, Art, Meaning, and Allusion: Strengthening Hypothetical Intentionalism, San Diego, California (2013)

  • British Society of Aesthetics, The Special Problem of Interactive Fiction, Cambridge, England (2013)

  • Society for the Philosophic Study of Contemporary Visual Art, Central American Philosophical Association Meeting, Principles of Generation of Fiction in Videogames, New Orleans, Louisiana (2013)

  • American Society of Aesthetics, Defending Musical Fundamentalism, St. Louis, Missouri (2012)

  • Society for Exact Philosophy, The Incompatibility of Chance and Determinism (even via Contextualism), Columbus, Ohio (2012)