Research

I conduct research in rhetoric with a focus on philosophy, politics and the history of ideas. I have written on topics such as diplomacy and war, populism and sophistry, as well as on the works of individual thinkers, primarily Slavoj Žižek, Barbara Cassin and Alain Badiou. Here you will find information about my ongoing and completed research projects, as well as my publications.

The Return of the Sophists? – Post-Truth, Democracy, and Rhetoric in the Populist Moment

Project duration: 2021-2024

Principal funder: Swedish Research Council.

Abstract

The aim is to develop an understanding of the state of contemporary democracy focusing on the threat that the eloquent speaker poses to the people as sovereign. Today, both the political left and right claim that democracy is under constant pressure from populist demagogues and sophistic ideologues misleading the people to further their own agenda. However, rather than constituting a novelty, the history of this threatening figure is riveted to that of democracy itself. The latest iteration of this theme can be traced back to the late 60s, where these issues were once again formulated in academia under two different headings: populism and sophistry. While populism appears as a problem in the practical political world, thus offering itself up to be studied by the empirical sciences, the sophist as a figure in democracy asks slightly different questions. Already in Antiquity, the political threat embodied in the sophist seems to provoke democracy on a fundamental level, forcing us to question what is in politics, what we can know, and what we can say about it. Rather than offering another attempt to uncover the nature of populism and its threat to democracy, the aim is to trace the other side of this history, focusing on the sophist in contemporary political thought. By tracing how political thought has approached this figure since the 60s, the project will develop an understanding of our populist moment and what it can tell us of the state of democracy in the post-truth era.

Post-Communist Communism in Eastern Europe

Project duration: 2021-2022

Principal funder: The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies.

Abstract

This project aims at investigating so-called post-communist communism as it is developed by members of the Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis. Headed by self-admitted communist Slavoj Žižek, the School represents an attempt to attain what today appears as an impossible position: to critique historically existing communism in Eastern Europe, while still retaining the communist idea in a time where the left seems unable to offer any alternative to the worldview of capitalism besides a so-called ostalgie of failed revolutions. The study will provide insights into the Schools analysis of the communist legacy in Eastern Europe as well as its view on the more general question of the actualization of political ideas. The project will employ the theory and method of rhetorical history inspired by Hegelian Begriffsgeschichte, focusing on how the concept of communism is rhetorically formed through the school’s analysis of the concept’s historical actualization in Eastern Europe and through their critique of our present ailments, relating it to their thoughts concerning the nature of the political idea. The material will consist of published work by scholars connected to the school, in particular its intellectual leader Slavoj Žižek. This analysis allows us to move from the particularity of the actual attempts (and failures) to actualize communism in Eastern Europe to the general perspective of the nature and function of political ideas.

Barbara Cassin and Sophistics

Project duration: 2019-2022

Principal funders: Åke Wiberg Foundation, Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation.

Abstract

This project partly consists of translations of Barbara Cassin’s work from French to Swedish. This is important not at least because unlike several of her predecessors (e.g. Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault) and her contemporary colleagues (e.g. Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière), no major translation of Cassin’s work into Swedish exist at this moment. In addition to this, Cassin has, during the last decade, been awarded some of the highest honors within the French cultural scene. She was for instance been awarded Grand prix de philosophie from the French Academy in 2012, Croix de chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 2014 before she, in 2018, was elected to hold chair 36 in the Académie française. In 2016 I published three short translations together with a short introduction to Cassin’s work in the Scandinavian journal Rhetorica Scandinavica. The project also included a publication in the academic journal Philosophy & Rhetoric, treating Cassin’s ongoing debate with Alain Badiou surrounding the relation between the sophists and philosophy. The aim of the project is to finalise an anthology with translations of Cassin’s text into Swedish together with an extensive introduction to her thought and her place within contemporary French philosophy. The project also includes articles on Cassin’s work and her understanding of the sophists.

Diplomacy – Name, History, Ideology

Project duration: 2012-2019

Principal funder: BEEGS

Secondary funders: Swedish-French Foundation, Gålö Foundation

About the Project

The project was set to investigate diplomacy by moving from the revolutionary 18^th and 19^th centuries to our digitalized present and by passing through the fields of art, philosophy, literature, and science. The aim was to show how this practice, which emerged out of the ‘glorious’ revolution of France, became one of the central ideological state apparatuses of the modern democratic nation-state. Diplomacy’s primary task is not to be understood as negotiating peace between warring parties, but rather its function is to reproduce the myth of the state’s unity by repressing its fundamental inconsistencies. Since the time of the French Revolution, the problem of the unity of the state is itself mirrored in three recurring problems concerning the integrity of diplomacy as both an object of study and a mode of political practice. Firstly, the problem of naming. How to define diplomacy? To this day, International Relations’ scholars remain vexed by the actual nature of this secretive practice. Secondly, since its coining, diplomacy has been haunted by a certain untimeliness. In a time when the world is made up of an ever-growing number of diplomatic actors, the act of representation, assumed to constitute the hallmark of all ambassadorial practice, is itself increasingly difficult to master. Thirdly, a number of important events and developments, including two world wars and technological inventions ranging from the telegraph to the internet, have during these last two centuries constituted yet another threat to turn diplomacy into a thing of the past, prompting thinkers of international politics to compete in locating its hour of demise. The problems, then, that affect the integrity of diplomacy (and reflect the fragile unity of the state) are: the name, representation, and death. In an attempt to understand these problems, the project aimed to answer the question What is diplomacy?, and employed Slavoj Žižek’s critique of ideology to reveal the symptomal inconsistencies in diplomacy’s role within modern statecraft. The work brought together a wide range of disciplines, from Political Science and International Relations to Rhetoric, Political Theory, Philosophy, History of Ideas, Literature, and Psychoanalysis.

Sustainable Economies? The Swedish Riksbank and Climate Change

Project duration: 2026-

Principal funder: FORMAS

About the project:

The possibility of shaping ecologically sustainable markets remains a persistent challenge within the sciences. At the same time, Swedish policymakers have recently mandated the Riksbank, with its overarching responsibility for economic stability, to also incorporate a sustainability perspective into its operations. Both representatives of the Riksbank and researchers in the field emphasize that these measures, for reasons of effectiveness, presuppose extensive communicative efforts on the part of the central bank. In other words, the effective execution of the Riksbank’s activities – including its new sustainability practices – requires a clear communicative focus.

This project explores how sustainable economies are framed in the rhetoric of the Swedish Riksbank. It examines the images of sustainability used in the Riksbank’s communication, how these images have evolved over time, and how they relate to the sustainability mandate introduced in the 2023 Law of the Riksbank. Additionally, the project aims to develop a theoretico-methodological framework for understanding central bank sustainability rhetoric.

Publications

Here you will find information about and links to all currently published scientific monographs, anthologies, articles and chapters. There is also a list of published translations.

Monographs

Diplomacy & Ideology: From the French Revolution to the Digital Age (London: Routledge, 2020)

This innovative new book argues that diplomacy, which emerged out of the French Revolution, has become one of the central Ideological State Apparatuses of the modern democratic nation-state. The book is divided into four thematic parts. The first presents the central concepts and theoretical perspectives derived from the work of Slavoj ?i?ek, focusing on his understanding of politics, ideology, and the core of the conceptual apparatus of Lacanian psychoanalysis. There then follow three parts treating diplomacy as archi-politics, ultra-politics, and post-politics, respectively highlighting three eras of the modern history of diplomacy from the French Revolution until today. The first part takes on the question of the creation of the term ‘diplomacy’, which took place during the time of the French Revolution. The second part begins with the effects on diplomacy arising from the horrors of the two World Wars. Finally, the third part covers another major shift in Western diplomacy during the last century, the fall of the Soviet Union, and how this transformation shows itself in the field of Diplomacy Studies. The book argues that diplomacy’s primary task is not to be understood as negotiating peace between warring parties, but rather to reproduce the myth of the state’s unity by repressing its fundamental inconsistencies. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy studies, political theory, philosophy, and International Relations.

The Ambassador's Letter: On the Less Than Nothing of Diplomacy (Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2019)

The principal aim of this dissertation is to answer the age-old question What is diplomacy? But this study approaches the question in what might, on first look, appear oblique. By employing Slavoj Žižek’s reworked notion of Ideologiekritik with respect to the history, science, and artistic explorations of diplomacy, this work begins by extracting three of its essential problems: the name, death, and representation. A presentation of the central concepts and theoretical perspectives at play in Žižek’s work is elaborated upon, focusing on his understanding of politics, ideology, and the core of the conceptual apparatus of Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Etik, retorik, politik: Till tvetydighetens lov (Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2013)

Sedan antiken har retoriken anklagats för att vara en omoralisk konst som endast bryr sig om framgång, helt utan hänsyn till det sanna eller det goda. Än idag, mer än tvåtusen år efter Platons förkastelsedom, saknar retorikvetenskapen en ingående diskussion kring frågan om retorikens etik.

Articles & Chapters

“Tragedy, then Farce: Slavoj Žižek’s Theory of Populism”, Crisis & Critique, (2025), vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 324-341. ISSN: 2311-5475.

Slavoj Žižek is frequently portrayed as the paradigmatic anti- populist thinker. Yet he is also routinely criticized for endorsing populist causes in contemporary politics, not least after his infamous remarks concerning Donald Trump during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. This article aims to approach this supposed contradiction by examining Žižek’s theory of populism. Rather than reading his debate with Ernesto Laclau as primarily a confrontation between reformist populism and revolutionary communism, the article approaches it as a fundamental disagreement over therelationship between theory and political practice. Through a close reading of Žižek’s engagement with Laclau, the analysis reveals how Žižek critiques what he perceives as a fetishistic tendency in Laclau’s thought which ultimately produces a deficient account of universalization
and results in the domestication of the constitutive negativity marked by the Lacanian objet a.

“Ambassadören: Opålitlig sofist eller fredsbevarande förhandlare?”, in [eds.] Ekeman, K., Gorgis, M., Lalér, T., & Mehrens, P. Retoriska typer, pp.211-252. (Uppsala: URS/SRU, 2025).

År 427 f.v.t., kort efter att ett inbördeskrig brutit ut på Sicilien, tog sig Gorgias till Aten. Han gjorde detta för att, i egenskap av sändebud, söka stöd i försvaret av sin hemstad Leontini efter att det mäktigare Syrakusa hade gått till militärt angrepp. Förutom att ha varit en viktig milstolpe i etablerandet av Gorgias ryktbarhet kan vi i denna resa se ett tidigt exempel på diplomatins och retorikens gemensamma historia.

“Retorikens värde: Kan retoriken tänka det nya?”, Rhetorica Scandinavica 89, (2024), pp.86-102. DOI: 10.52610/rhs.v28i29.315. ISSN: 1397-0534.

Denna artikel tar sin utgångspunkt i hur retoriken under moderniteten beskrivs som ett hot mot föreställningsförmågan och det genialiska ska-pandet i syfte att kunna ställa frågan om retorikens förmåga att tänka det nya. Mot denna splittring av den retoriska traditionen vänds sedan blicken mot strukturalismens reintegrering av retoriken, hur denna har grundats i en dunkel relation mellan språkligt och ekonomiskt värde samt hur i syn-nerhet Ernesto Laclau har hanterat denna fråga. Via Laclaus begrepp den tomma betecknaren och Marx dito den allmänna ekvivalenten utreds sedan tre potentiella läsningar av Laclaus teori om retoricitet och språkligt skapande. Genom dessa läsningar framträder risken med att modellera en språk- och retoriksyn på värdeformen, inte minst eftersom ett otillräckligt erkännande av denna modell också potentiellt underminerar Laclaus begrepp om retoricitet.

"The Exemplary Rhetor: On Anti-Philosophy and Sophistics in Alain Badiou”, Distinctio: Journal of Intersubjective Studies, (2023), vol. 2, no. 2, pp.85-110. DOI: 10.56550/d.2.2.4. ISSN: 2939-0826.

This article investigates the ambiguous status of rhetoric, situated between proper philosophy and mere sophistry, through Alan Badiou’s three exemplary f igures of thought: the philosopher, the anti-philosopher, and the sophist. With the recent return of the sophist in politics in the form of populist politicians, contemporary rhetorical studies have expressed a need for the discipline to reconsider its alliance with relativist sophistics. However, by studying Badiou’s three exemplary f igures, and relating them to his understanding of the three forms of negation, the article explores a possible rift between sophistical rhetoric and anti-philosophical populism that complicates prevalent understandings of the relationship between rhetoric, phi-losophy, and sophistics. Finally, the article brings up some issues concerning how to f it exemplarity in general, and the three exemplary f igures in particular, into the framework of Badiou’s entire philosophy and discusses how to potentially counter-act these limitations.

“From Communist Ideology to the Idea of Communism: Transformations in Žižek’s Notion of Communism”, Filozofski vestnik, (2023), vol. 44, no. 1, pp.53-73. DOI: 10.3986/fv.44.1.03. ISSN: 0353-4510.

This article approaches a potential tension in the work of Slavoj Žižek between his cri-tique of communist ideology and his endorsement of the communist idea. The aim is to show how this endorsement, in effect, emerged out of Žižek’s sustained engagement with communist ideology. The article captures this transformation by focusing on his understanding of the notion of the idea and the ways in which ideology can be trans-gressed. The conclusion drawn is that in moving from a Kantian to a Hegelian notion of the idea, Žižek also leaves behind his initial Beckettian Leninism in favor of an under-standing of revolution that no longer depends on the heroic act of a subject, but on the immanent logic of the communist idea.

“Ironier och katakreser – Populismens logik eller kommunismens idé?”, Rhetorica Scandinavica 85, (2023) pp.1-20. DOI: 10.52610/rhs.v27i85.88. ISSN: 1397-0534.

This article takes its starting point in the shift in how democracy is understood within Scandinavian rhetorical studies, where an agonistic or an antagonistic perspective has come to surpass a previously dominating consensus-oriented notion of democracy. The article investigates how this transformation might influence the rhetorical analysis of populism since it can no longer be dismissed as purely anti-democratic. The article approaches this question through a reading of two thinkers of the antagonism, Slavoj Žižek and Ernesto Laclau, and their discussion concerning populism. Through examples gathered from the rhetorical transformation of Swedish Conservative Party Moderaterna, the article aims to extract, out of Žižek’s and Laclau’s respective work, two different perspectives on how to understand the rhetoricity constitutive of an antagonistic ontology of the political. By focusing on the choice between catachresis and irony, a rhetorical tradition committed to thinking the antagonism can develop two opposing views on how populism relates to democracy.

“’I would prefer not to’; or – Who’s afraid of Hegel? Protagoras and Parrhêsia”, S: Journal of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique 13, (2022), pp. 46-62. ISSN: 1874-9062.

In Peregrinations, Jean- françois Lyotard describes the inescapable feeling of inadequacy plaguing those who attempt to become philosophers: “One declares oneself philosopher or writer. One must admit that one is an imposter. Any veritable thinking is accompanied by nothing but its own sense of indignity. The only mode of escaping this for an instant is to exhibit the impossible: one thinks here and now, with the situation, and in a single situation of thought at a time. So as that which menaces the work of thought (or of writing) is not that it remains episodic, but that it pretends to be complete.

“Autonomous Politics: Imaginary and Imagination in Doxology”, in [ed.] Bengtson E. et al., Shadows in the Cave – Revisiting Rosengren’s Doxology, pp. 277-295. Ödåkra: Retorikförlaget, 2022. DOI: 10.52610/GOMX2908. ISBN: 978-91-86093-51-8.

In Homer, the word πόλις seems to simultaneously refer to two aspects of communal living. On the one hand, it signifies the physical space where a community has erected its dwellings, a meaning exemplified in the habitual question posed to every newly arrived traveler: where is your polis and where are your parents? But polis also signifies an imagined community, such as when “the whole city of the Troyans [Τρώων δὲ πόλις] has come out against them fearlessly”. And although these two significations of the concept are usually understood as inseparable sides of a whole, the ancient Greeks did nonetheless leave us with tales of how a polis could be brought along to a new location if necessity called for it.

"Något-intet-den?”, Res Cogitans, (2021), vol. 15, no. 1, pp.28-42. DOI: 10.7146/rc.15132022. ISSN: 1603-8509

I de avslutandestyckena av ”L’Étourdit”, ursprungligen en föreläsning framfördvid femtioårsjubileet av l’Hôpital Henri-Roussellei Paris 1972 och sedan publicerad året därpåi Scilicet, plockar Lacanpå nyttupp Demokritosatomism.Genom att återvända tilldenna lära, som tidigare diskuterats vid en av föreläsningarna i det elfte seminariet, öppnar Lacaninte barafrågan omnegativiteten, om varat och intet ochhur vi går från intetochvaratviablivandet till något,det vill sägafrågan om ontologinoch dess genesis, utan minst lika mycket ställer han frågan om det omedvetna och repetitionen. Upprepandet avDemokritosatomism, problemet som rörden och mēden,pekardärmed ut ett fundamentalt problem för psykoanalysen.

“Slavoj Žižek and Dialectical Sophistics - On the Relationship Between Dialectical Philosophy and Philosophical Rhetoric”. Philosophy & Rhetoric, (2020), vol. 53, no. 2,pp.134-156, DOI: 10.5325/philrhet.53.2.0134. ISSN: 0031-8213.

This article approaches the problem of post-truth and the opposition between philosophical dialectics and sophistic rhetoric. The antagonism is addressed through a reading of Žižek’s depiction of the ongoing discussion between Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin, the “new version of the ancient dialogue between Plato and the sophists,” as stained by sexual difference, and the dialectics between Parmenides and Gorgias. The article argues that only through acknowledging the inescapable failure of these sides to ever establish a complete totality are we capable of overcoming the antagonism that resides at their core, thus making a dialectical sophistics, on the basis of Žižek’s thought, possible. Thus, only by taking the path through post-truth can we attempt to reach the disavowed core of truth that haunts every failed system.

“Hovets sofister: Diplomati, retorik och representationens problem”, Rhetorica Scandinavica 81, (2020), pp.48-64. DOI: 10.52610/rhs.v24i81.21. ISSN: 1397-0534

Rhetoric and diplomacy shares something we might call the problem of representation, arising out of the difficulties to ever accurately represent something. In the article, this joint problem is approached through an investigation into its diffe-rent solutions, taking us from Plato’s and Aristotle’s critique of the sophists, through Demosthenes’ and Aeschines’ joint effort to create peace between Athens and Philip II of Macedon, to Rousseau, Kant, and contemporary scholars studying diplomatic rhetoric. In Kant’s idea of perpetual peace and Perelman’s con-cept of a universal audience, we eventually find what we might call modernity’s answer to this ancient problem, the acceptance of what in Hegelian parlance could be called the bad infinity of diplomatic and rhetorical communication. Finally, and by con-trast, Lacan’s use of the diplomat as an illustration of the limits of representation is discussed and the possibility of avoiding the endless dialectic of trial and error is developed.

“Ska vi lära folk att tala? Eller: om logologins förutsättningar”, Rhetorica Scandinavica 74, (2017), pp.55-71. DOI: 10.52610/rhs.v20i74.59. ISSN: 1397-0534.

This text aims at investigating the possible effectsthat Barbara Cassin’s rereading of the battle between the philosophers and the sophist might have on the contemporaryunderstanding of the connection between Rhetoric and thepolitical. In her critique of Plato and Aristotle, she construesthe conflict between philosophy and sophistry as a disputeabout being rather than, as is traditionally argued, knowledge(ontology/logology rather than epistemology/doxology). Finally,a possible foundation for a logological understanding of the political is sketched with the help of concepts from Lacanianpsychoanalysis.

“Introduction: On the Art of Cave Guiding”, med Erik Bengtson, Karl Ekeman, Mirey Gorgis & Louise Schou Therkildsen, in Bengtson E., et. al. [ed.]. Shadows in the Cave – Revisiting Rosengren’s Doxology, pp.9-16. Ödåkra: Retorikförlaget, 2022.

Caves, images, and symbols are recurring topics in the work of Mats Rosengren, from his reading of Plato in his dissertation Psychagōgia – Konsten att leda själar, to his investigation of the world of paleolithic cave art in Cave Art, Perception and Knowledge. While other philosophers might have descended into the cave with the aim of guiding visitors back up into the blinding light of eternal truths, Rosengren seems to be at home in the underworld. Instead of dismissing the paintings that adorn its walls as merely shadowy copies or distorted images, or claiming that the truth of these pictures is readily available to us, Mats Rosengren invites any traveler joining him to understand them as different forms of sensemaking, forms which at first might appear foreign, but that, upon closer inspection, reveal themselves in all their complexity. In this volume, the contributors take on some of the key themes found in Rosengren’s work, mirroring the stylistic, generic, and topical range that characterizes it. The volume is titled “Shadows in the Cave”, signaling a focus not on eternal truth, but – alluding to Plato – on the shadowplay of our human caves.

“An Alliance of War and Peace: Europe and the Necessity of Diplomacy”. Crisis & Critique, (2020), vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 194-213. ISSN: 2311-5475.

This essay seeks to approach the current tensions within the European Union through the lens of the philosophy on perpetual peace. Beginning with Kant’s pamphlet On Perpetual Peace and his depiction
of it as “an infinite process of gradual approximation”, the text moves through Hegel’s concept of the necessity of war in order to develop an understanding of the emergence of war between modern nation states. Finally, it approaches Derrida’s critique of both Hegel and Kant as well as his own understanding of the conditions for peace in Europe, in an attempt to provide an explanation for the tensions haunting the EU during the last two decades.

“Retorikens spöken” in Förledd och förjust, ed. Bengtson E. & Buhre F, pp.73-85. Södertörn retoriska studier 3. Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2015. ISBN: 978-91-87843-14-3.

Ett spöke går runt Europa – men det är inte retorikens spöke. Istället spökar det i retoriken. Ur en tusenårig historia stiger vålnader i lagerkrans och toga upp ur sina gravar med famnarna fulla av dammiga skrifter. De är gengångare med idéer om talet och kunskapen, om varat och logos, om demokratin och sanningen. De talar till oss på språk som sedan länge är döda

Anthologies

Payne, David; Strandberg, Gustav & Stagnell, Alexander [ed.]. Populism and The People in Contemporary Critical Thought: Politics, Philosophy and Aesthetics. (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023)

Is populism the unsurpassable horizon of our own time or is it a temptation that should at all costs be resisted? Who, and to what end, does the jargon of populism serve?

To answer these questions, Alexander Stagnell, Gustav Strandberg, David Payne, and their contributors trace the socio-historical significance of the concept of ‘The People’ in western philosophy and its relationship to the trend of populist politics today. Bringing together scholars from the fields of aesthetics, critical, cultural and political theory, philosophy, and rhetoric, this volume critically explores the issues facing contemporary society today.

With an international team of authors, each chapter speaks to a range of contexts recently affected by populism today, including Sweden, Brazil, Germany, Austria, France, and the UK. As political and economic establishments face a crisis of legitimacy, Populism and The People in Contemporary Critical Thought reveals the shaky foundations on which the concept of ‘The People’ rests. Engaging with critical theory, feminist theory, Marxism, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis, this collection highlights how ‘The People’ comes to stand in for both belonging and exclusion, enabling us to see the uses and abuses of such terminology as pressing theoretical and political concerns.

Bengtson Erik; Ekeman, Karl; Gorgis, Mirey; Schou Therkildsen, Louise & Stagnell, Alexander. [ed.]. Shadows in the Cave – Revisiting Rosengren’s Doxology. (Ödåkra: Retorikförlaget, 2023.)

Rosengren, Mats; Schou Therkildsen, Louise & Stagnell, Alexander [ed.]. Can a person be illegal? Refugees, Migrants and Citizenship in Europe. (Uppsala: Uppsala universitet, 2018)

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