Barbara Herrnstein Smith
Barbara Herrnstein Smith (born 1932) is an American literary critic and theorist, best known for her work Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory. She is currently the Braxton Craven Professor of Comparative Literature and English and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Science and Cultural Theory at Duke University, and also Distinguished Professor of English at Brown University. Biography Smith briefly studied at City College of New York, studying biology, experimental psychology, and philosophy. She then earned her B.A. (summa cum laude) in 1954 and her Ph.D. from Brandeis University. Brandeis University reports Smith earned her doctorate in 1965, and Duke University reports she earned her doctorate in 1963. From 1961 to 1973, Smith taught at Bennington College. She accepted a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania in 1973. In 1987 she joined the Duke University faculty, and also joined Brown University in 2003. Smith has also occupied numerous short-term and honorary posts. She was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Scholarship and work Smith is a well-known writer, most particularly for her 1983 work on critical theory,