Researching David Miller

He was educated at Woodbridge School and Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1964 he began to study Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics. Soon afterwards he became one of Karl Popper's research assistants. In a series of papers in the 1970s, Miller and others uncovered defects in Popper's formal definition of verisimilitude, previously a mostly ignored aspect of Popper's theory. A substantial literature developed in the two decades following, including papers by Miller, to assess the remediability of Popper's approach.

Miller's Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defence is an attempt to expound, defend, and extend an approach to scientific knowledge identified with Popper. A central, "not quite original", thesis is that rationality does not depend on good reasons. Rather, it is better off without them, especially as they are unobtainable and unusable.

Miller directed Lonely Are the Brave (1962) with Kirk Douglas; Emanuel Levy wrote in 2009 that it "is the most accomplished film of David Miller, who directs with eloquent feeling for landscape and attention to character." Others feel that Miller's filmic masterpiece is his 1952 noir thriller and Joan Crawford vehicle Sudden Fear co-starring Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame. In addition, Sudden Fear was nominated for four Academy Awards for Best Actress (Crawford); Best Actor (Palance); Best Costume Design; and Best Cinematography Charles Lang.

Miller's work has been especially devoted to the canon of Edmund Spenser, a contemporary of Shakespeare's whose Faerie Queene is considered one of the two or three greatest epic poems in the language. Spenser was the subject of The Poem's Two Bodies in 1988, and Miller is helping to prepare a new scholarly edition of the English poet. In many of the articles, particularly in Dreams of the Burning Child, Miller ranges through ancient, early modern, and modern literatures and through both popular and high cultures to demonstrate the central thesis that Western culture is fixated on the sacrifice of sons as a means of shoring up patriarchal authority.

Prior to moving to South Carolina, Miller taught at the University of Alabama from 1978 until 1994, and at the University of Kentucky from 1994 until 2004.

After growing up in San Diego, California, he was educated at Yale University and the University of California, Irvine. He has won fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Miller has published over fifty books and pamphlets. His first books were The Caryatids (Enitharmon Press) and South London Mix (Gaberbocchus Press), both published in 1975. His subsequent works include The Story (Arc Publications, 1976), Unity (Singing Horse Press, 1981), Pictures of Mercy (Stride, 1991), Stromata (Burning Deck Press, 1995), Collected Poems (University of Salzburg Press, 1997), Art and Disclosure (Stride, 1998), Spiritual Letters (1-12) (hawkhaven press, 1999) and The Waters of Marah (Singing Horse 2003, Shearsman 2005).

His writing has been celebrated in At the Heart of Things: the poetry and prose of David Miller (Stride 1994). Other discussions of his writing can be found in an essay by Robert Hampson in New British Poetries: The Scope of the Possible, ed. R. Hampson and Peter Barry (Manchester University Press, 1993), Michael Thorp's Breaking at the Fountain: A Meditation on the Work of David Miller (Stride, 1998), and Tim Woods' long essay, '"Thought itself, ruptured": The Spiritual Materialist Poetics of David Miller', The Poet's Voice, New Series, Vol. 4(2), 1998.

He is an associate editor for Poetry Salzburg Review.

Miller was born in Des Moines, Iowa. He received a Bachelor of Architecture B.Arch. from Washington State University in 1968, then worked in Brasilia as a Peace Corps volunteer. He next studied at the University of Illinois and received his Master of Architecture M.Arch. in 1972. After graduation, Miller worked for Canadian architect Arthur Erickson. He moved to Seattle in 1977 to open a branch office of Rhone & Iredale. In 1980, Miller and Robert Hull took the office independent and renamed it the Miller/Hull Partnership.

In 1990 Miller joined the faculty of the UW Department of Architecture as an associate professor; he was promoted to full professor in 1998. He became Chair of the department in summer 2007, serving for eight years. He stepped down as chair in June 2015. After sabbatical leave, Miller returned to teaching as a member of the architecture faculty.

Miller continues to practice architecture at Miller/Hull.

Miller grew up working at a fruit farm, and served in the Army in World War I. While there, he contracted blepharitis, and became totally blind as a result. After his blindness set in, he began playing guitar and moved to Huntington, West Virginia. He recorded a few pieces for the Starr Piano Company in 1924 and again in 1927, which are some of the earliest surviving audio documents of old-time music. He also recorded for Paramount Records in 1930. He played on West Virginia radio station WSAZ with Cecil Adkins from 1927 to 1933. He also played with a string band called the West Virginia Mockingbirds in the 1930s and 1940s, alongside four brothers, Ed, George, Albert, and Frank Baumgardner. They played on radio and at local churches and dance parties, and became regionally popular. Miller continued to perform into the early 1950s, playing regularly at the Guyandotte theater alongside musicians such as T. Texas Tyler and Patsy Cline.

Miller is an aggressive left-handed middle order batsman and an occasional wicket-keeper who plays domestic cricket for the Dolphins and is the former captain of Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League and plays for South Africa in both One Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 International cricket. In September 2018, Miller announced that he would no longer be available to play first-class cricket.

He practiced law in New York City from 1911 to 1929; served on the Inquiry, a body of experts that collected data for the Paris Peace Conference (1917–1919); and was legal adviser to the American commission to the conference.

As an officer of the US Department of State (1929–1944), Miller headed the American delegation to the 1930 Hague Conference for the codification of international law. His published works include My Diary at the Conference of Paris, with Documents (21 vol., 1924–26) and Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America (8 vol., 1931–1948).

Miller made his debut for Dorset in the 1998 Minor Counties Championship against Herefordshire. From 1998 to 2000, Miller represented Dorset in 14 Minor Counties Championship matches, with his final appearance for the county coming against Wiltshire.

In 1999, Miller played his only List-A match for Dorset in the 1999 NatWest Trophy against Scotland, where he scored 41 runs.

David G. Miller was appointed Member of the Order of Australia in 1995 for "service to music, particularly as a piano accompanist".

One of his lectures at the University of Bristol led to complaints, including from students, with allegations of antisemitism and the spreading of conspiracy theories. Although according to Jonathan Cook in Mondoweiss, cleared of the initial allegations, a further investigation was launched as a result of comments he made about both Israel and Jewish student groups. The investigation found that Miller's comments were not unlawful; however, his employment at the university was terminated in October 2021 as it was deemed he had not met the standards of behaviour expected of staff.