Ash’s primary research interests include twentieth- and twenty-first-century French intellectual history, twentieth-century French literature, continental philosophy, philosophy of religion and philosophy of education. His current work extends across three main projects. First, he is working on a monograph on the contemporary French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s deconstruction of Christianity project. By situating Nancy’s work in relation to Heidegger and Derrida in particular, he aims to explore its relevance for thinking both the place of religion in secular modernity and the future of deconstruction itself. His second project focuses on the life and work of the French novelist, essayist and musicologist Romain Rolland (1866-1944), including his position within a broader history of ideas (in relation to thinkers such as Spinoza, Nietzsche and Bergson in particular) and the significance of his work for understanding the roman-fleuve literary form. Ash has also just begun a project on the place of Bildung in pedagogical theory, looking at how this concept of self-cultivation can be used to frustrate the binary distinction between instrumentalist and cultural conceptions of education.
Relevant publications
Collins, A 2017, ‘The forgotten Spinozist: Romain Rolland, Gilles Deleuze, and the figure of Christ’, French Cultural Studies, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 329-343 (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0957155817721680)
Collins, A 2016, ‘Romain Rolland (1866-1944)’ in Sylvie Parizet (ed.), La Bible dans les littératures du monde. Paris: Les Editions Du Cerf, pp. 1880-1882 (https://www.editionsducerf.fr/librairie/livre/17757/la-bible-dans-les-litteratures-du-monde-coffret)
Collins, A 2016, ‘Being exposed to love: the death of God in Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Luc Nancy’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, December 2016, Volume 80, Issue 3, pp. 297–319. DOI 10.1007/s11153-015-9552-z (rdcu.be/m10X)
Collins, A 2015, ‘The Enunciation of the Subject: Sharing Jean-Luc Nancy’s Singular Plural in the Classroom’, Educational Philosophy and Theory. Volume 47, Issue 8, pp. 774-785. DOI:10.1080/00131857.2014.901162 (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00131857.2014.901162)
Collins, A 2015, ‘Towards a Saturated Faith: Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Luc Nancy on the Possibility of Belief after Deconstruction’, Sophia: International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions, Volume 54, Issue 3, pp. 321-341. DOI:10.1007/s11841-015-0473-1 (rdcu.be/m10Y)
Collins, A 2014, ‘Trinity and Atheology The Listening Self in Romain Rolland’s Jean-Christophe‘, French Forum, vol. 39, no. 2-3, pp. 113-127 (https://muse.jhu.edu/article/565444/summary)
Collins, A 2011, ‘The Religious Attitude and Music in Romain Rolland’s Jean-Christophe: A Tekhnè of Body’, Australian Journal of French Studies, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 188-200 (https://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3828/AJFS.48.2.188)
Collins, A 2010, ‘Jean-Christophe: un héros pacifiste? (Jean- Christophe: a Pacifist Hero?)’, in Bernard Duchatelet (ed.), Romain Rolland, une œuvre de paix, Publications de la Sorbonne, Paris, France, pp. 53-60 (http://www.editions-sorbonne.fr/fr/livre/?GCOI=28405100304980)
Relevant links
https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/collins-adl
http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/about-the-centre/researchers/ashok-collins/
cuspp.net 