Konsten att kontextualisera: Om historisk förståelse och meningsskapande
This chapter deals with ”recontextualization”. It argues that a core analytical function of any h... more This chapter deals with ”recontextualization”. It argues that a core analytical function of any history writing is reflecting upon which context a source, actor, or other historical phenomenon is placed within. The chapter draws on the example of the early twentieth-century Swedish geographer Sven Hedin to indicate various contexts that his travels, publications and images can be placed in. Depending upon which context we as historians construct, different narratives about Hedin’s endeavors emerge. More importantly, the choice of context has repercussions on the object of study beyond Hedin as a concrete actor. Accordingly, the chapter indicates how it is possible to reread and recontextualize the work of the geographer as part of a much broader history of planetary scales, produced through travel narratives and imagery going back to the seventeenth century. While Hedin himself did not explicitly claim to be part of such a history, the historian is at liberty to construct such a bro...
In this book chapter me and Linn Holmberg critically engages with the field History of Knowledge.... more In this book chapter me and Linn Holmberg critically engages with the field History of Knowledge. We discuss the conceptual weaknesses and discuss what the new field might produce in terms of critical and historical questions to knowledge and knowledge making.
As climate change becomes an increasingly important part of public discourse, the relationship be... more As climate change becomes an increasingly important part of public discourse, the relationship between time in nature and history is changing. Nature can no longer be considered a slow and immobile background to human history, and the future can no longer be viewed as open and detached from the past. Times of History, Times of Nature engages with this historical shift in temporal sensibilities through a combination of detailed case studies and synthesizing efforts. Focusing on the history of knowledge, media theory, and environmental humanities, this volume explores the rich and nuanced notions of time and temporality that have emerged in response to climate change.
This paper concerns how a sense of curiosity, a yearning for knowing the unknown, was circulated ... more This paper concerns how a sense of curiosity, a yearning for knowing the unknown, was circulated and cultivated through practices of exploration in the early twentieth century. My empirical focal point is the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin. He undertook four expeditions to Asia between 1893 and 1935, and became influential in international geography as well as a European celebrity. His books, articles and lectures, for example “My Life as an Explorer” (1925), were best sellers. There was a keen interest in scientific expeditions and explorers in the early 20th century and I ask how curiosity was a way to invite the audience to these endeavors. Emotions of curiosity were crucial for enrolling the public, teaching them to feel like discoverers. The paper thus traces the historical construction of a modern desire to see the world in an exploratory mode. I view emotions as collectively cultivated. Indeed, my methodological claim is that publications and popular presentations were among the...
Uppfinningsrikedom och entreprenorsanda beskrivs ofta som svenska paradgrenar. Innovatorerna har ... more Uppfinningsrikedom och entreprenorsanda beskrivs ofta som svenska paradgrenar. Innovatorerna har blivit nationsbarare och symboler for varumarket Sverige i en samling ideer med djupa historiska rot ...
The role of verticality in 19th-and 20th-century fields of knowledge-making has received increase... more The role of verticality in 19th-and 20th-century fields of knowledge-making has received increased attention among historians of science. Correspondingly, cultural historians have explored the growing importance of a bird's eye view in popular culture throughout the 1800s. The elevated positions created in science and public discourse have both contributed to a modern ability to see the bigger picture. This article investigates how the Swedish geographer Sven Hedin produced an elevated view through his expedition to the Karakoram mountain range in Tibet between 1906 and 1908. Focusing on his travel narrative as a place where the elevated view was created and defined, I interpret Hedin's expedition as a part of initiatives in geography, at the turn of the 20th century, to find a vertical means of representing the world. In particular, this article demonstrates how the overview, both literally and metaphorically, became an ideal in Hedin's narrative. Moreover, I argue that Hedin's elevated view contributed to an emotional economy of elevation. The alleged rational gaze of the overview was combined with emotions and experiences of cold climate, thin mountain air, vertigo, and awe. This article indicates how affective states were included in the collection of data, even when they threatened to blur the sensorium of the observer. Third, through the analytical lens of an emotional economy of elevation, I argue that Hedin's elevated view mimicked the affective language of a Humboldtian tradition while at the same time it contributed to the popular culture of the late 19th century with its fascination for ascents and bird's‐eye views. As a European celebrity, Hedin reached massive crowds and contributed to the establishment of the outlook from above as a crucial technique for understanding nature.
This essay explores the gendered lifestyle of early twentieth-century physics and chemistry and s... more This essay explores the gendered lifestyle of early twentieth-century physics and chemistry and shows how that way of life was produced through linking science and home. In 1905, the Swedish physical chemist Svante Arrhenius married Maja Johansson and established a scientific household at the Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry in Stockholm. He created a productive context for research in which ideas about marriage and family were pivotal. He also socialized in similar scientific sites abroad. This essay displays how scholars in the international community circulated the gendered lifestyle through frequent travel and by reproducing gendered behavior. Everywhere, husbands and wives were expected to perform distinct duties. Shared performances created loyalties across national divides. The essay thus situates the physical sciences at the turn of the twentieth century in a bourgeois gender ideology. Moreover, it argues that the gendered lifestyle was not external to knowledge making but, rather, foundational to laboratory life. A legitimate and culturally intelligible lifestyle produced the trust and support needed for collaboration. In addition, it enabled access to prestigious facilities for Svante Arrhenius, ultimately securing his position in international physical chemistry.
ArgumentThis article explores the scientific partnership between geology professor Gerard De Geer... more ArgumentThis article explores the scientific partnership between geology professor Gerard De Geer and his wife Ebba Hult following their marriage in 1908. De Geer was an influential participant in Swedish academia and international geology. Hult worked as his assistant until his death in 1943. The partnership was beneficial for both spouses, in particular through the semi-private Geochronological Institute, which they controlled. The article argues that marriage was a culturally acknowledged form of collaboration in the academic community, and as such it offered Hult access to geological research. However, the paper also argues that the gendered scientific institutions produced a fractured position. Partly, Hult managed to create her own role as researcher in geochronology. As a woman and a wife, however, she never moved out of her husband's shadow. Gender is understood as a relational category: Hult was an outsider who participated partially in standardized structures which gav...
Nearly three decades ago, Steven Shapin argued that, among a range of venues in seventeenth-centu... more Nearly three decades ago, Steven Shapin argued that, among a range of venues in seventeenth-century England — places like the shops of apothecaries and instrument makers, coffeehouses, royal palaces, and college rooms — private residences of gentlemen were ‘by far the most significant’, with the ‘overwhelming majority of experimental trials, displays, and discussions that we know about’ having occurred within them.1 Despite others’ recognition of the wider applicability of this assessment well beyond this context, Alix Cooper noted in her survey of scientific homes and households in the early modern period, ‘Few historians of science have paid attention to these kinds of “private” spaces.’2 Attuned to the historiography of science’s continued neglect of domestic space and related themes — domesticity, households, and families -this volume investigates the historical significance of domestic matters for the production of scientific knowledge.
Abstract. Eva von Bahr (1874–1962) got her doctorate in experimental physics at the Physics Insti... more Abstract. Eva von Bahr (1874–1962) got her doctorate in experimental physics at the Physics Institute at Uppsala University in 1908. Subsequently she became the first woman assistant professor in physics in Sweden. In the face of many obstacles, she worked as a physicist for six ...
Like many other scientists before and after him, the Swedish oceanog-rapher and physicist Hans Pe... more Like many other scientists before and after him, the Swedish oceanog-rapher and physicist Hans Pettersson (1888–1966) was exposed to scientific activity from an early age. He grew up surrounded by scientific and cultural interests, in a household where ‘the elite from the scientific world gathered’.1 Later, he recreated the ‘atmosphere’ of his upbringing in his own home, with assistance from his wife Dagmar (nee Wendel, 1888–1978).2 In 1914, Pettersson received a PhD in physics. After doing radioactivity research at the Radium Institute in Vienna for a period in the 1920s — work for which he is best known — he returned to Sweden. In 1930 he was appointed the nation’s first Professor of Oceanography. Since the 1890s, his father Otto Pettersson (1848–1941) had exercised an increasingly international influence over oceanography. Growing up with a ‘renowned oceanographer’ as a father, and with a laboratory on the family estate, Hans Pettersson inherited science as a product of family relations.3
Konsten att kontextualisera: Om historisk förståelse och meningsskapande
This chapter deals with ”recontextualization”. It argues that a core analytical function of any h... more This chapter deals with ”recontextualization”. It argues that a core analytical function of any history writing is reflecting upon which context a source, actor, or other historical phenomenon is placed within. The chapter draws on the example of the early twentieth-century Swedish geographer Sven Hedin to indicate various contexts that his travels, publications and images can be placed in. Depending upon which context we as historians construct, different narratives about Hedin’s endeavors emerge. More importantly, the choice of context has repercussions on the object of study beyond Hedin as a concrete actor. Accordingly, the chapter indicates how it is possible to reread and recontextualize the work of the geographer as part of a much broader history of planetary scales, produced through travel narratives and imagery going back to the seventeenth century. While Hedin himself did not explicitly claim to be part of such a history, the historian is at liberty to construct such a bro...
In this book chapter me and Linn Holmberg critically engages with the field History of Knowledge.... more In this book chapter me and Linn Holmberg critically engages with the field History of Knowledge. We discuss the conceptual weaknesses and discuss what the new field might produce in terms of critical and historical questions to knowledge and knowledge making.
As climate change becomes an increasingly important part of public discourse, the relationship be... more As climate change becomes an increasingly important part of public discourse, the relationship between time in nature and history is changing. Nature can no longer be considered a slow and immobile background to human history, and the future can no longer be viewed as open and detached from the past. Times of History, Times of Nature engages with this historical shift in temporal sensibilities through a combination of detailed case studies and synthesizing efforts. Focusing on the history of knowledge, media theory, and environmental humanities, this volume explores the rich and nuanced notions of time and temporality that have emerged in response to climate change.
This paper concerns how a sense of curiosity, a yearning for knowing the unknown, was circulated ... more This paper concerns how a sense of curiosity, a yearning for knowing the unknown, was circulated and cultivated through practices of exploration in the early twentieth century. My empirical focal point is the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin. He undertook four expeditions to Asia between 1893 and 1935, and became influential in international geography as well as a European celebrity. His books, articles and lectures, for example “My Life as an Explorer” (1925), were best sellers. There was a keen interest in scientific expeditions and explorers in the early 20th century and I ask how curiosity was a way to invite the audience to these endeavors. Emotions of curiosity were crucial for enrolling the public, teaching them to feel like discoverers. The paper thus traces the historical construction of a modern desire to see the world in an exploratory mode. I view emotions as collectively cultivated. Indeed, my methodological claim is that publications and popular presentations were among the...
Uppfinningsrikedom och entreprenorsanda beskrivs ofta som svenska paradgrenar. Innovatorerna har ... more Uppfinningsrikedom och entreprenorsanda beskrivs ofta som svenska paradgrenar. Innovatorerna har blivit nationsbarare och symboler for varumarket Sverige i en samling ideer med djupa historiska rot ...
The role of verticality in 19th-and 20th-century fields of knowledge-making has received increase... more The role of verticality in 19th-and 20th-century fields of knowledge-making has received increased attention among historians of science. Correspondingly, cultural historians have explored the growing importance of a bird's eye view in popular culture throughout the 1800s. The elevated positions created in science and public discourse have both contributed to a modern ability to see the bigger picture. This article investigates how the Swedish geographer Sven Hedin produced an elevated view through his expedition to the Karakoram mountain range in Tibet between 1906 and 1908. Focusing on his travel narrative as a place where the elevated view was created and defined, I interpret Hedin's expedition as a part of initiatives in geography, at the turn of the 20th century, to find a vertical means of representing the world. In particular, this article demonstrates how the overview, both literally and metaphorically, became an ideal in Hedin's narrative. Moreover, I argue that Hedin's elevated view contributed to an emotional economy of elevation. The alleged rational gaze of the overview was combined with emotions and experiences of cold climate, thin mountain air, vertigo, and awe. This article indicates how affective states were included in the collection of data, even when they threatened to blur the sensorium of the observer. Third, through the analytical lens of an emotional economy of elevation, I argue that Hedin's elevated view mimicked the affective language of a Humboldtian tradition while at the same time it contributed to the popular culture of the late 19th century with its fascination for ascents and bird's‐eye views. As a European celebrity, Hedin reached massive crowds and contributed to the establishment of the outlook from above as a crucial technique for understanding nature.
This essay explores the gendered lifestyle of early twentieth-century physics and chemistry and s... more This essay explores the gendered lifestyle of early twentieth-century physics and chemistry and shows how that way of life was produced through linking science and home. In 1905, the Swedish physical chemist Svante Arrhenius married Maja Johansson and established a scientific household at the Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry in Stockholm. He created a productive context for research in which ideas about marriage and family were pivotal. He also socialized in similar scientific sites abroad. This essay displays how scholars in the international community circulated the gendered lifestyle through frequent travel and by reproducing gendered behavior. Everywhere, husbands and wives were expected to perform distinct duties. Shared performances created loyalties across national divides. The essay thus situates the physical sciences at the turn of the twentieth century in a bourgeois gender ideology. Moreover, it argues that the gendered lifestyle was not external to knowledge making but, rather, foundational to laboratory life. A legitimate and culturally intelligible lifestyle produced the trust and support needed for collaboration. In addition, it enabled access to prestigious facilities for Svante Arrhenius, ultimately securing his position in international physical chemistry.
ArgumentThis article explores the scientific partnership between geology professor Gerard De Geer... more ArgumentThis article explores the scientific partnership between geology professor Gerard De Geer and his wife Ebba Hult following their marriage in 1908. De Geer was an influential participant in Swedish academia and international geology. Hult worked as his assistant until his death in 1943. The partnership was beneficial for both spouses, in particular through the semi-private Geochronological Institute, which they controlled. The article argues that marriage was a culturally acknowledged form of collaboration in the academic community, and as such it offered Hult access to geological research. However, the paper also argues that the gendered scientific institutions produced a fractured position. Partly, Hult managed to create her own role as researcher in geochronology. As a woman and a wife, however, she never moved out of her husband's shadow. Gender is understood as a relational category: Hult was an outsider who participated partially in standardized structures which gav...
Nearly three decades ago, Steven Shapin argued that, among a range of venues in seventeenth-centu... more Nearly three decades ago, Steven Shapin argued that, among a range of venues in seventeenth-century England — places like the shops of apothecaries and instrument makers, coffeehouses, royal palaces, and college rooms — private residences of gentlemen were ‘by far the most significant’, with the ‘overwhelming majority of experimental trials, displays, and discussions that we know about’ having occurred within them.1 Despite others’ recognition of the wider applicability of this assessment well beyond this context, Alix Cooper noted in her survey of scientific homes and households in the early modern period, ‘Few historians of science have paid attention to these kinds of “private” spaces.’2 Attuned to the historiography of science’s continued neglect of domestic space and related themes — domesticity, households, and families -this volume investigates the historical significance of domestic matters for the production of scientific knowledge.
Abstract. Eva von Bahr (1874–1962) got her doctorate in experimental physics at the Physics Insti... more Abstract. Eva von Bahr (1874–1962) got her doctorate in experimental physics at the Physics Institute at Uppsala University in 1908. Subsequently she became the first woman assistant professor in physics in Sweden. In the face of many obstacles, she worked as a physicist for six ...
Like many other scientists before and after him, the Swedish oceanog-rapher and physicist Hans Pe... more Like many other scientists before and after him, the Swedish oceanog-rapher and physicist Hans Pettersson (1888–1966) was exposed to scientific activity from an early age. He grew up surrounded by scientific and cultural interests, in a household where ‘the elite from the scientific world gathered’.1 Later, he recreated the ‘atmosphere’ of his upbringing in his own home, with assistance from his wife Dagmar (nee Wendel, 1888–1978).2 In 1914, Pettersson received a PhD in physics. After doing radioactivity research at the Radium Institute in Vienna for a period in the 1920s — work for which he is best known — he returned to Sweden. In 1930 he was appointed the nation’s first Professor of Oceanography. Since the 1890s, his father Otto Pettersson (1848–1941) had exercised an increasingly international influence over oceanography. Growing up with a ‘renowned oceanographer’ as a father, and with a laboratory on the family estate, Hans Pettersson inherited science as a product of family relations.3
Times of History, Times of Nature: Temporalization and the Limits of Modern Knowledge, 2022
While studies of nineteenth-century historiography often focus on its professionalization within ... more While studies of nineteenth-century historiography often focus on its professionalization within Western nation-states, marginal Moravia is prominent when considering multiple notions of time and historiography’s material needs. Thus, the chapter analyzes Moravian scholars’ time-binding practices, through which Moravian time was synchronized with those of nature and Christianity, and a Moravian, chronological timeline was established by collecting, organizing, and mediating sources classified as Moravica. Notably, archaeological evidence and geological metaphors helped unite horizontal and vertical time-thinking. In conclusion, the case underlines the multiplicity of temporal thinking, as well as the fundamental importance of mapping, knowing, and claiming historical matter.
Kunskap beskrivs den som avgörande för samhälle och medborgare, gärna under etiketten ”Kunskapssa... more Kunskap beskrivs den som avgörande för samhälle och medborgare, gärna under etiketten ”Kunskapssamhället”. Men hur kan vi skriva den vetenskapliga kunskapens kulturhistoria? Med hjälp av fem fallstudier från det tidiga 1900-talet diskuterar Staffan Bergwik kunskapens sammanhang och spelplatser. Studierna behandlar den arge oceanografsonen Hans Pettersson och den mäktige Svante Arrhenius, men också kvinnor som är doldisar i kunskapshistorien: Sveriges första docent i experimentell fysik Eva von Bahr, kemisten Naima Sahlbom och geologhustrun Ebba Hult De Geer. Hur hänger vetenskap och identitet ihop? Vad har kunskap med makt och individuella livsval att göra? Vilken är relationen mellan vetenskap och det omgivande samhället? Och framförallt: vad innebär det att betrakta kunskap som något historiskt? Kunskapens osynliga scener frilägger överraskande och glömda rötter till dagens vetenskap, till skillnad från gängse skildringar av naturvetenskapernas ständiga segertåg.
I denna essärecension diskuterar jag det nya fältet "kunskapshistoria" liksom antologin Circulati... more I denna essärecension diskuterar jag det nya fältet "kunskapshistoria" liksom antologin Circulation of knowledge (Lund: Nordoc academic press, 2018)
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