Biography
Alexander Stagnell
I received my Ph.D. in 2019 from the Department of Literature at Uppsala University with a dissertation titled The Ambassador’s Letter: On the Less Than Nothing of Diplomacy. In my dissertation, I examined the concept and history of diplomacy. During my doctoral studies, I also spent a year as a visiting doctoral student at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Since then, I have held positions including postdoctoral researcher at the Université libre de Bruxelles and junior researcher at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. My research has been funded by, among others, the Swedish Research Council’s international postdoc program, Formas, and the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies.
CV
Degrees/Habilitation
2024 – Docent (habilitation) in Rhetoric, Södertörn University.
2019 – PhD in Rhetoric, Uppsala University.
2012 – M.A., Uppsala University.
2009 – Fil. kand., Södertörn University.
Positions
2026- Professor of Communication, Department of Communication and Culture, BI Norwegian Business School.
2026- Researcher, Department of Literature and Rhetoric, Uppsala University.
2025-2026 Researcher, Department of Defence Analysis, FOI.
2022-2024 Postdoctral Research Fellow, Université libre de Bruxelles/Södertörn University.
2022 Junior Researcher, Residency Programme, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
2021 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Södertörn University.
2019-2021 Senior Lecturer in Rhetoric, Södertörn University.
2014-2015 Visiting Doctoral Fellow, Centre d’études sociologiques et politiques Raymond Aron, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.
2012-2014/2015-2019 – Doctoral Fellow in Rhetoric, Baltic and East European Graduate School, Södertörn University.
2010-2012 – Lecturer in Rhetoric, Södertörn University.
Alexander Stagnell
Projects
Previous Research Projects
The Return of the Sophists (2021-2024)
The aim of the project was to develop an understanding of the state of contemporary democracy focusing on the threat that the eloquent speaker poses to the people as sovereign. Financed by the Swedish Research Council’s International Postdoc Programme.
Post-Communist Communism in Eastern Europe (2021-2022)
This project aimed at investigating so-called post-communist communism as it is developed by members of the Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis. Financed by the Foundation for Baltic and Eastern European Studies.
Barbara Cassin and Sophistics (2019-2021)
This project partly consists of translations of Barbara Cassin’s work from French to Swedish as well as Cassin’s ongoing debate with Alain Badiou surrounding the relation between the sopFounists and philosophy. Financed by Åke Wiberg’s Foundation och Helge Ax:son Johson’s Foundation.
Diplomacy: Name, History, Ideology (2012-2019)
The project was set to investigate diplomacy by moving from the revolutionary 18th and 19th centuries to our digitalized present and by passing through the fields of art, philosophy, literature, and science.