Education: Doctorate
Research Title: Research Associate
University Title: Assistant Professor
ORCID no.: 0000-0002-6457-3815
+386 1 470 64 76
rok.bencin@zrc-sazu.si
Dr. Rok Benčin's research interests revolve around the relations between aesthetics, ontology and politics in contemporary philosophy. He focuses on contemporary French philosophy (Rancière, Badiou, Deleuze), critical theory (especially Adorno) and contemporary perspectives on modern philosophy (currently Leibniz’s metaphysics and Hegel’s aesthetics). In his work, he often explores modern literature (especially Proust) and cinema. He also works on research ethics and integrity.
Monographs
Rethinking the Concept of World: Towards Transcendental Multiplicity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024.
Okna brez monad: estetika od Heideggerja do Rancièra [Monadless Windows: Aesthetics from Heidegger to Rancière]. Ljubljana: ZRC Publishing House 2015.
Articles
Art between fetishism and melancholy in Adorno’s Aesthetic theory. Estudios de Filosofía. 2023, no. 68, str. 31-43. DOI
Distant Immediacy: Badiou and Rancière on May ʼ68 and its Consequences. European Review, 2021, vol. 29, no. 6, pp. 714–724. DOI
Worlds as transcendental and political fictions. Filozofski vestnik, 2021, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 221–243. DOI
Rethinking Representation in Ontology and Aesthetics via Badiou and Rancière. Theory, Culture & Society, 2019, vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 95–112. DOI
L'affettività dell'apparenza estetica tra sofferenza e indifferenza. Psiche: rivista di cultura psicoanalitica, 2019, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 79–94. DOI
Proustian Developments: The World and Object of Photography. Substance: a review of theory and literary criticism, 2017, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 16–30. JSTOR
Chapters
Adornos Monadologie. In: Unversöhnlichkeiten: Einübungen in Adornos Minima Moralia, eds. P. Buhlmann, T. Nikolaus Klass and P. Nolz, 168–187. Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2023.
Benčin, R. (2022). Verso un materialismo stilistico. In: Sulla soglia delle forme: genealogia, estetica, politica della materia, ed. A. Montebugnoli, 91–106. Milano: Meltemi, 2022.
Form and Affect: Artistic Truth in Adorno and Badiou. In: Badiou and the German Tradition of Philosophy, ed. J. Völker: 197–216. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2019.
Editorial Work
The Concept of World in Contemporary Philosophy. Special Issue, Filozofski vestnik, 2021, 42(2).
SATORI - Stakeholders Acting Together On the ethical impact assessment of Research and Innovation (framework program • January 1, 2014 - September 30, 2017)
Structure and Genealogy of Perversion in Contemporary Philosophy, Politics, and Art (fundamental research project • September 1, 2020 - August 31, 2023)
The problem of objectivity and fiction in contemporary philosophy (July 1, 2018 - June 30, 2021)
Europe as a Philosophical Idea and Political Subject (fundamental research project • May 1, 2017 - April 30, 2020)
The Philosophy of Crisis: Economy - Politics - Ecology (fundamental research project • August 1, 2013 - July 31, 2016)
Conditions and Problems of Contemporary Philosophy IV (research programme • January 1, 2020 - December 31, 2025)
Conditions and Problems of Contemporary Philosophy III (research programme • January 1, 2015 - December 31, 2019)
Ethics, integrity and gender equality in the research area of Slovenia: between policies and their implementation (applied research project • September 1, 2021 - December 31, 2023)
Education
2012– PhD in Philosophy, postgraduate programme Intercultural Studies – Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures: module The Transformation of Modern thought - Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Culture at University of Nova Gorica; supervisor: Jelica Šumič-Riha; thesis title: “The Role of Aesthetics in Contemporary Ontology and Political Philosophy: Immanence, Representation, Truth”
2007– M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts
2007– M.A. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts
Employment and Titles
2016–, Research Fellow at ZRC SAZU, Institute of Philosophy, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
2008– 2016, Research Assistant ZRC SAZU, Institute of Philosophy, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Teaching Engagements
2016–, Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU, module “Transformation of Modern Thought - Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Culture” at the postgraduate programme “Comparative Study of Ideas and Cultures”, course “Contemporary Philosophy and Modern Literature”.
2023–, University of Ljubljana, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, course “Art Theory”
2022 (November), University of Applied Arts Vienna, block seminar The Concept of World between Loss and Multiplication
2022, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Department of Philosophy, course “Social Philosophy”
2019 (November), Université Paris 8, course Les objets monadiques
2018–2019, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Department of Philosophy, course “What is Enlightenment?”
Prizes, Awards, Scholarships, Fellowships
Scholarships
– Université Paris 8, Paris, Invited Professor (November 2019)
– Université Paris 8, Paris, Erasmus scholarship (2010)
– Université Paris 8, Paris, French government scholarship (2009)
Selected Lectures and Conference Papers
The philosophy of waking up: Proust and the multiplicity of worlds. Presentation. Paper presented at Perspectives proustiennes, Colloque international, Prague, 23–25 March 2023.
Fiction and the Conflict of Worlds. Paper presented at XXIII Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, Tbilisi, 27 July 2022.
Art between Fetishism and Melancholia in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory. Lecture at Universität für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, 25 May 2022.
Adorno’s Monadology. Paper presented at “Wer sagt, er sei glücklich, lügt” Kritische Theorie in Bruchstücken: 70 Jahre Minima Moralia, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin, 12 November 2021.
Le livre sur rien: indifférence entre esthétique et ontologie. Invited lecture at Université Paris 8, 27 November 2019.
Artwork: A Monad or a Possible World? The Dismantled Leibnizianism of Contemporary Aesthetics. Paper presented at the 21st International Congress of Aesthetics, International Association for Aesthetics, Belgrade, 24 July 2019.
The World According to Contemporary Philosophy: Lost or Multiplied, Real or Fictional? Paper presented at the international conference Truth, Fiction, Illusion: Worlds & Experience, Association for Philosophy and Literature, Alpen-Adria Universität, Klagenfurt, 1 June 2019.
Membership in National and International Associations
2022–, Member of The Research Committee on Literary Theory of the International Comparative Literature Association