Associate Professor Alex Ling

Associate Dean, Graduate Studies,
Dean's Unit, School of Humanities & Comm Arts

Senior Research Associate Professor, Com. & Media,
Humanities (Arts)

Biography
Contact
Publications
Projects
Supervision
Teaching

Biography

Alex’s primary research and teaching interests are in the fields of continental philosophy, film studies, critical theory, visual culture, and psychoanalytic theory. He is the author of numerous books, including Scandalous Times: Contemporary Creativity and the Rise of State-Sanctioned Controversy (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021, link), Badiou Reframed: Interpreting Key Thinkers for the Arts (I.B. Tauris, 2017, link), and Badiou and Cinema (Edinburgh University Press, 2011, link). Alex is also editor and translator (with A.J. Bartlett) of Mathematics of the Transcendental (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014, link), and founding editor of the Journal of Continental Philosophy (link). Alex’s research has been translated into Chinese, French, German, and Turkish. For CV and links to publications, visit Alex’s Academia.com page (link).

This information has been contributed by Associate Professor Ling.

Qualifications

PhD University of Melbourne
BA (hons) University of Melbourne
BA (Cinema Studies) University of Melbourne

Professional Memberships

Australian Council of Deans and Directors of Creative Arts (2016 - 2023)
Australian Society for Continental Philosophy (2004)
Modernist Studies Association (2013)
Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (2013)
American Philosophical Association (2013)

Awards

Graduate Research Excellence Award (University of Melbourne) 2010-11-01
Fred Knight Research Scholarship 2005-01-01
RG Wilson Scholarship 2005-01-01
Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship 2005-01-01
Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarship 2014-01-01
Edward Stevens Exhibition in English Language and Literature 2002-01-01
Academic Development Program 2018-07-01
Research Development Award 2018-07-01
Researcher of the Year (Traditional Research) 2021-11-01

Interests

Art Theory
Cinema Studies
Continental Philosophy
Critical and Cultural Theory
Mathematical Logic
Modernism - Literature and Visual Cultures
Psychoanalytic Theory
Visual Culture

Organisational Unit (School / Division)

Dean's Unit, School of Humanities & Comm Arts
Humanities (Arts)

Committees

Research Studies Committee
Associate Dean, Higher Degree Research
Co-chair, School Research and Higher Degrees Committee
Graduate Research School, School Academic Committee
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Continental Philosophy

Contact

Email:	A.Ling@westernsydney.edu.au
Phone:	(02) 9685 4638
Mobile:
Location:	ED.G.86 Parramatta

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Teaching

Previous Teaching Areas

100256 Film and Affect, 2011
100876 Media and Visual Cultures, 2012
101979 Understanding Visual Culture, 2017
101984 Cinema and Experience, 2021
101989 Thinking Cinema, 2016
102192 Cinema and Censorship, 2017
102584 The Image of Thought: Art, Film and Philosophy, 2019

Publications

Books

Ling, A. (2021), 'Scandalous Times: Contemporary Creativity and the Rise of State-Sanctioned Controversy', : Bloomsbury Academic 9781350068551.
Ling, A. (2021), 'Badiou Reframed', : Chongqing University Press .
Ling, A. (2017), 'Badiou Reframed: Interpreting Key Thinkers for the Arts', : I.B. Tauris 9781780762609.
Badiou, A., Ling, A. and Bartlett, A. (2014), 'Mathematics of the Transcendental', : Bloomsbury 9781441189240.
Ling, A. (2011), 'Badiou and Cinema', : Edinburgh University Press 9780748641130.

Chapters in Books

Ling, A. (2024), 'Reflections on cinema and philosophy', Understanding Badiou, Understanding Modernism, Bloomsbury Academic 9781501384400.
Badiou, A., Bartlett, A., Burchill, L., Bliss, L., Clemens, J., Cooke, B., Ling, A., Cleary, J., Boncado, R., Mereine, K. and Hills, L. (2018), ''The movement of emancipation' : round table interview with Alain Badiou', Badiou and His Interlocutors: Lectures, Interviews and Responses, Bloomsbury 9781350026650.
Ling, A. (2018), 'An inessential art? : positioning cinema in Alain Badiou's philosophy', Badiou and His Interlocutors: Lectures, Interviews and Responses, Bloomsbury Academic 9781350026650.
Ling, A. (2017), 'Thinking cinema with Alain Badiou', Film as Philosophy, University of Minnesota Press 9781517900502.
Ling, A. (2016), 'Ontology', Badi'ou: guan jian gai nian = Alain Badiou: Key Concepts, Chongqing Univeristy Press 9787568902137.
Ling, A. (2015), 'Lars von Trier and the end of cinema : melancholia', The London Film & Media Reader 3: The Pleasures of the Spectacle: 60 Essays from Film and Media 2013 the Third Annual London Film and Media Conference, 26-29 June 2013, London, U.K., London Symposium 9780957363151.
Ling, A. and Bartlett, A. (2014), 'Translators' introduction : the categorial imperative', Mathematics of the Transcendental, Bloomsbury Academic 9781441189240.
Ling, A. (2010), 'Ontology', Alain Badiou: Key Concepts, Acumen 9781844652297.
Ling, A. (2006), 'Can Cinema Be Thought? Alain Badiou and the Artistic Condition', The Praxis of Alain Badiou, Re.press 9780980305203.

Journal Articles

Ling, A. (2021), 'The sublime and the analogical', Climbers Magazine, vol 1 , pp 64 - 67.
Fleming, C. and Ling, A. (2020), 'Introduction to the first issue', Journal of Continental Philosophy, vol 1, no 1 , pp 1 - 8.
Barbour, C., Bubbio, P., Fleming, C., Ling, A. and Schmidt, D. (2020), 'Journal of Continental Philosophy : editorial statement', Journal of Continental Philosophy, vol 1, no 1 .
Ling, A. (2020), 'Editor's introduction : on the turning against', Journal of Continental Philosophy, vol 1, no 2 .
Ling, A. (2018), 'Cinematic logic and the function of the cut', Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, vol 4, no 2 , pp 26 - 54.
Ling, A. and Bartlett, A. (2018), 'Kategorik Buyruk', Cogito, vol 90 , pp 7 - 19.
Ling, A. (2016), 'The schlock of the new : Badiou, Duchamp, and the everyday miracle', Parrhesia, vol 26 , pp 136 - 156.
Alberts, P., Bubbio, D., Barbour, C. and Ling, A. (2014), 'Editors' introduction : continental philosophy in Australia', Parrhesia, vol 21 , pp 1 - 2.
Ling, A. (2012), 'Parentheses in time : L'Annee Derniere a Marienbad (1961) as amorous event', Screening the Past, vol 34 .
Ling, A. (2006), 'Keeping the Faith: On Being Good and How Not to be Evil', Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol 2, no 1 , pp 359 - 364.
Ling, A. (2006), 'Can Cinema Be Thought? Alain Badiou and the Artistic Condition', Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol 2, no 2 , pp 263 - 273.

Other Publications

2023, 'Greek Civil War: Stasis', Published Work
2022, 'Homonymy and Amphiboly, or Radical Evil in Translation', Published Work
2021, 'Aspasia, Foreigner, Intellectual', Published Work
2020, 'Hegel, the Arts, and Cinema', Published Work
2020, 'In Search of the Lost Real', Published Work
2020, 'Pre-Socratics and Post-Moderns: The Effects of Sophistry', Published Work
2009, 'Cinema as a democratic emblem', Published Work

Alex's most recent book is Scandalous Times: Contemporary Creativity and the Rise of State-Sanctioned Controversy (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).

Description:

We live in scandalous times. Every day some new controversy demands our attention, our emotional investment, and, ultimately, our judgment. Many of these routine transgressions will be understood in ‘revelatory’ terms, as peeling back the multiple layers of artifice and spin to reveal an underlying, and oftentimes disturbing, ‘truth’. Others will be recognized as calculated marketing exercises that simply present the strategic face of contemporary capitalism.

Yet these ‘ordinary’ scandals can themselves be seen to be largely derivative of another, altogether more fundamental—and fundamentally rare—form of disruption. Such is the real scandal that accompanies instances of authentic creation. Building on the philosophy of Alain Badiou, Scandalous Times not only argues the case for such ‘real scandal’, but also shows how it is today being abrogated and substituted through the increasing production of novel forms of state-sanctioned controversy.

From Duchamp to Donald Trump, Scandalous Times explores the ways in which areas from art and advertising to politics and social media have come to actively contribute to this ‘static’ fabrication of controversy, all the while arguing for the need to rethink creativity as a radical exception to the state, and not its proxy.