Richard G Smith

Educated at Lawrence Sheriff School, University of Hull (BA Hons, 1st) and University of Bristol (PhD).

Available for media contact about:

Philosophy: Jean Baudrillard

Urban Studies: Global Cities, World Cities, International Financial Centres

Brexit: London's role, status, governance, and future as Europe's premier global city

Economics: The economic specialization of cities in globalization

Globalization: Urban challenges and leadership needs in an interconnected world

My academic research concerns poststructuralism:

First, in Baudrillard Studies as author of numerous articles, and editor of Jean Baudrillard: Fatal Theories (Routledge, 2009), The Baudrillard Dictionary (Edinburgh University Press, 2010), ‘Baudrillard Redux’ (Special Issue of Cultural Politics, 2011), Jean Baudrillard: from Hyperreality to Disappearance: Uncollected Interviews (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), Jean Baudrillard: the Disappearance of Culture: Uncollected Interviews (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), and editorial board member of the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies. I organized the first major UK conference on Baudrillard's work in 2006, and was interviewed about Baudrillard for South Korean TV. Current research is focused on completing several books: Jean Baudrillard: Untranslated French Interviews (Seagull Books), Jean Baudrillard: Untranslated German Interviews (Seagull Books), Jean Baudrillard: Uncollected Anthology (Edinburgh University Press), and Jean Baudrillard: Extreme Theory (Edinburgh University Press).

Second, in Urban Studies, with research focusing on poststructuralism, assemblage theory, and actor-network theory. My broad expertise in poststructuralist theory has enabled me to recast the conceptual apparatus and empirical approach of urban studies to effectively critique and overturn the neo-Marxist world city, global city, and interlocking world city network concepts (and the error of the ordinary cities notion) to understand cities not only as connected, but as always striving to prohibit and disguise their unbinding and destabilization as networked assemblages. My research has been reported on extensively in the world’s print media, and my journal papers are among the most highly-cited and reprinted in the world – a few examples: on ISI web of science my Cities (1999) paper has 337 citations; my Annals (2000) paper has 201 citations; one of my Progress in Human Geography (2003) papers has 73 citations and is noted as one of the fifty most frequently cited. My urban studies research is reprinted in no fewer than 7 urban studies collections. Current service to the wider discipline concerns my editing of a major book – The Companion to Urban Studies (Routledge, 2018).

My research interests overlap. My latest research is concerned with introducing, explaining, and developing an approach to Urban Studies that is founded on the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard. See, for example, my entry on ‘Jean Baudrillard’ for The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies (2017, Edited by Anthony Orum).