For the past two decades, Prof. Smith’s work has focused on dehumanization, particularly in relation to race and genocide. He speaks widely in both academic and non-academic settings, and his work has been extensively featured in national and international media.
David Livingstone Smith
Visiting Professor
Visiting professor in the name of Tage Danielsson, on the basis of philosophy
Dehumanization, race and genocide
Prof. of philosophy at the University of New England, Maine
Research
Fascist States of Mind
Fascism is an important concept, although there is a lot of controversy about how it should be understood. Scholars mostly think of fascism as a kind of political organization, or system of governance, involving certain distinctive ideological components.
This lecture will present a different perspective. Drawing on psychological and psychoanalytic resources, it will describe fascism as a state of mind that supports and empowers the more familiar external features of fascist movements.
Lecture recorded: 2026-01-01.
Publications
Smith has authored three books on the subject
Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others (St. Martin's Press, 2011). Won the 2012 Anisfield-Wolf Award for Nonfiction.
On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It, (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization, (Harvard University Press in 2021). Won the Joseph B. Gittler Award for philosophy of the social sciences and was shortlisted for the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy.
Appearances
He has appeared in several television documentaries and is frequently interviewed for newspapers, magazines, podcasts, and radio.
In 2012, he was a guest at the G20 economic summit, where he spoke on dehumanization and mass violence.
In 2024, he gave a talk and participated in a panel discussion at IKOS together with Subrena Smith, Ola Larsmo and Stefan Jonsson.
