Vad förenar Jenny Diskis Främling på tåg, Malte Perssons Underjorden och Olga Tokarczuks Löparna? Alla är de exempel på litteratur från senare decennier som uppsöker rum för genomfarter och transporter, som tåget, tunnelbanan och flygplatsen, för att reflektera över sina egna förutsättningar. Det litterära skapandet har traditionellt förknippats med avskildhet och med det privata rummet, och i denna bok undersöks hur sådana föreställningar både utmanas och bekräftas när författandet söker nya färdvägar. Litteraturens transitmiljöer har många sidor: här kan främlingar bli förtroliga med varandra, men författaren kan också vända blicken inåt. Dessa rum kan ges laddning av klassiska myter eller användas för oppositionella estetiska experiment. De kan inspirera till nya sätt att organisera litterära texter och till tankar om skapandeprocesser. De kan utgöra fond för författares självframställningar och för reflektioner om litteraturens betydelse i samtiden. I Rastplats för rastlösa upprättas förbindelser mellan ett tjugotal litterära verk i olika genrer och från olika delar av världen som alla utforskar den kreativa potentialen i att vara i transit – på väg vidare.

Spaces of transit and transportation are often thought of as one-dimensional and as defined by their functionality and rationality, but recent literary texts challenge such preconceptions by representing those spaces as multidimensional and meaningful. In this article, we examine literature through the lens of place making, seeking to understand in what ways literary representations are involved in renegotiations of transit space. Addressing two generic spaces of transit—the underground and the airport—we analyze a body of texts generated through initiatives relating to the London Underground and Heathrow Airport respectively. Arguing that literature contributes to a processual understanding of place, we conclude that literary texts should be considered as instances of place making, and thus deserve serious consideration in research.

By examining the subway as a spatial structure informing the narrative and aesthetics of Faces in the Crowd (Los ingrávidos)—the debut novel of Valeria Luiselli—this article argues that transitional spaces such as the subway, designed primarily for movement and exchange, function in contemporary literature as reflective loci for aesthetic questions, and that they mediate an evolving debate on the changing conditions of artistic practice in a globalized world. In the novel, the subway, and the New York City subway in particular, is highlighted as a space for literary encounters and exchanges between Latin American and Northern American literary tradition. Furthermore, the material space of the subway and the practices of subway riding infuse the form and structure of the novel. With perspectives from Henri Lefebvre and critical literary geography as envisioned by literary critic Andrew Thacker, as well as from current discussion on aesthetic responses to globalization, it shows how the subway, with its double potential to function as an abstract, rational space of flows as well as a meaningful and situated location, mediates an aesthetic of movement and transit in Luiselli’s novel, interrogating some of the challenges facing literature in an increasingly global world.

Poesin har alltid haft ett särskilt förhållande till underjorden. Vid början av 1900-talet fick plötsligt tunnelbanan axla det underjordiska arvet, när modernistiska poeter började skriva dikter från plattformar och tunnlar. Tunnelbanedikten har sedan dess vuxit till en lika oväntad som tongivande lyrisk genre, med rötterna djupt rotade i den litteraturhistoriska underjorden. Litteraturvetaren Emma Eldelin tar tunnelbanan genom 1900-talets lyrik.

Enligt renässansförfattaren Michel de Montaigne var det den sysslolöshet som uppstod då han dragit sig tillbaka från sina offentliga plikter som ledde till att han började tänka och skriva essäistiskt. Reträtten till avskildhet blir sedan ett återkommande tema i essäns historia, både som materiellt privilegium och som ett slags sinnesstämning.

Emma Eldelin undersöker i denna bok förbindelserna mellan reträtt, sysslolöshet och essä, och de laddningar och betydelser som dessa begrepp har haft under olika tidsperioder. Med utgångspunkt hos fyra essäistiska författare från renässansen till vår tid - Michel de Montaigne, Charles Lamb, Virginia Woolf och Jenny Diski - flätar hon en vindlande tankeberättelse om villkoren för skapande, tänkande och skrivande och hur de utmanas i en värld som i allt högre grad har kommit att präglas av arbetsetiken.

A Poetics of the Underground: Space, Place and Intertextuality in Malte Persson’s Underjorden (Tunnelbanans poetik. Rum, plats och intertextualitet i Malte Perssons Underjorden)

The descent to the underworld in search of wisdom or to regain something or someone lost is a classic topos of literary history. In the context of urbanization and the technological transformation of society of the last two centuries, literary underworlds have often been re-imagined as actual and material subterranean spaces like subways, catacombs or sewers. In modernist poetry, for example, the descent to the underworld — rethought as an underground of modern transportation — has served as a spatial point of departure for reflections on poetics, on the poet’s conflictual relationship to the literary past and to his or her own society. Staged as a collection of sonnets on the Stockholm metro, Malte Persson’s Underjorden (2011) can be read as a contemporary take on this modern metamorphosis of the underworld. It can also be put forward as an example of a recurring tendency in the last few decades to link writing and literature to various urban and semi-public spaces of transit and transport, a tendency which poses significant challenges to Romantically infused ideas of literary creation as a place-bound, domestic, private and solitary activity. In this article, Persson’s Underjorden is discussed as an example of how a poetics of the underground is reflected and reconfigured in the Information Age. With perspectives from spatial theory and intertextual analysis, it is argued that two classic myths of poetic creation are contrasted and associated with underground space in Persson’s sonnet collection. Rather than opting for one of them, the self-reflective speaker of Underjorden remains playfully undecided on which side to take: is the contemporary poet a modern Orpheus or genius, creating original poetry, or an imitator, copyist and sampler, pouring from the boundless storehouse of literature?

Framed by two quotations from Western literary tradition, this article examines the changeable dialogue of British writer Jenny Diski with two of her self-appointed literary forerunners: Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Michel de Montaigne. In On Trying to Keep Still (2006), a book of literary nonfiction, Diski sets out on a two-month journey to live in an isolated cottage in Quantock Hills, Somerset. Her aim is to enact the role of the solitary, self-reflective writer and to explore the spaces, imagery and supposed behaviour attached to it. In relating her experience, Diski responds to a key myth of the Romantic period, the idea of solitary inspiration in nature, prefigured already in the solitude of the Renaissance writer in his famous tower. The purpose of the article is to illustrate how this dialogue serves by way of integration into a cultural tradition, and to show how Diski’s response is portrayed in various ways, from affectionate appropriation over ironic reduction to dismissal and renegotiation.

I det nuvarande kunskapssamhället tenderar kunskap att reduceras till ett medel för ekonomisk tillväxt och omedelbar praktisk nytta. Men humanistisk kunskap har större och viktigare uppgifter i samhället än så, till exempel att förmedla och kritiskt granska vårt kulturarv, utveckla förståelsen av olika kulturella uttryck och reflektera över vår historiska situation. Det är kunskap som är oumbärlig i ett demokratiskt samhälle i en globaliserad värld. Att se humanistisk kunskap i ett samhällsperspektiv synliggör såväl dess relevans som dess samhälleliga villkor. Texterna kastar sammantaget kritiskt ljus över forskningspolitiska tendenser, utmaningar och problem som humaniora står inför och ger konstruktiva alternativ. Antologin "Humaniora i kunskapssamhället" innehåller både vetenskapsfilosofiska och historiska perspektiv och drar nytta av ett flerårigt tvärdisciplinärt samarbete mellan nordiska forskare som koordinerats inom Nordiskt Sommaruniversitet med stöd från Nordiska Ministerrådet. Antologin riktar sig såväl till beslutsfattare som till forskare, studenter och andra som är intresserade av humanioras roll i samhället.

This article discusses current challenges towards the essay genre due to medialization of the public sphere. Up until recently, the essay has been strongly associated with the written and printed word, but essay theorists of later years have suggested that an “essayistic mode” can be traced in several other media, including radio and film. In this case, comparisons are made between Spanarna, a Swedish radio talk show broadcast on public service radio since 1988, and a few examples from the written essay tradition. The article takes a closer look at a special feature connecting Spanarna with the written essay: the paradoxical wish to communicate directly with the reader or listener despite the apparent constraints of the media apparatus. It is suggested that this communicative and sociable vision, expressed through the interplay of oral and written discourse, may be one possible ingredient in an essayistic mode that goes across the ages and exceeds different media.

The point of departure of this paper is a lecture by Edward Said, in which he claimed it necessary for today’s intellectuals to respond to modern specialization by assuming an attitude of amateurism in public life. It can be argued that there is a historical connection between the public role of the learned amateur and the essay as a form of expression and communication. Among recent advocates of the essay, the decline of this genre in modernity has sometimes been explained by the increasing public confidence in experts and specialists. According to this view, the development of modern society has made it less legitimate for essayists to serve as generalist commentators on society and culture. However, the growing tension between amateurism and professionalism goes back at least to the nineteenth century, and it has marked the ambiguous relation of the essay and the essayist to academia and institutional discourse ever since. This paper discusses what has become of this public role of essayists in late modernity. Some examples of essayists and essayistic writing of later decades, chiefly from Sweden, serve as illustrations of a general line of argument, even though there are also comparisons between the essay in Sweden and in other countries. Among the examples of Swedish essayists put forward here are Kerstin Ekman and Peter Nilson. The reception of these writers suggests that the essayist, adopting the role as amateur, driven by devotion and interest for the larger picture, might still be a vital part of public culture today. However, it is also clear that writers like Ekman and Nilson have gained at least part of their authority from being acknowledged in other fields or genres – Ekman as a distinguished novelist and Nilson as a trained astronomer.

This is a study of the critical reception of essayistic works by contemporary Swedish writers Nina Burton, Peter Englund and Peter Nilson, who all represent a way of writing where the essayist acts as a generalist rather than a specialist. Despite having high academic degrees, these authors emphasize the personal ”light learning” perspective often used in the essay tradition. The primary aim is to investigate which roles and what type of authority that have been ascribed to these essayists depending on partly their educational background and partly on conventions regarding the essay as a genre.

Essän som genre befann sig länge i symbios med den borgerliga offentlighet som växte fram i Europa under 1700- och 1800-talen. Paralleller kan t.ex. dras mellan borgerlighetens salongs- och kaffehuskulturer och det konverserande tilltal som utvecklades i den personliga essän i Montaignes efterföljd. Även om essän vände sig till en icke-specialiserad publik var förutsättningen att författare och läsekrets delade ett slags kultur- och värdegemenskap. Övertygelsen om kulturellt samförstånd gjorde det möjligt för essäisten att uttala sig som ”lärd generalist”, men också att tilltala läsaren som en jämlike i fråga om bildning och kunskaper. I Sverige utvecklades medvetandet om essän som litteraturart förhållandevis sent med en höjdpunkt under 1920-talet. Under senare decennier har vi sett många svenska författare som anknutit till essäformen, men i en tid då villkoren för litteratur och kunskapsförmedling på ett grundläggande sätt förändrats av fortlöpande demokratiseringsprocesser. Idag utmanas den klassiska bildningstanken av den kunskapsmässiga specialiseringen liksom av en expanderande medie- och populärkultur. I denna artikel belyses några aspekter av de samtida villkoren för den typ av essä där essäisten uppträder som lärd generalist. Utgångspunkt tas i den litteraturkritiska receptionen av tre essäböcker från senare decennier: Peter Nilsons Solvindar (1993), Peter Englunds Brev från nollpunkten (1996) och Nina Burtons Den nya kvinnostaden (2005).

This study deals with the essays of Swedish author and former astronomer Peter Nilson (1937–1998). The main aim is to describe the characteristics of Nilson’s essay writing with perspectives from modern essay theory. This is done by relating him to one of the main paths of the international essay tradition, chiefly inspired by Michel de Montaigne, where the essay has served as a method or a creative tool for deep reflective thought. Some common features of the “reflective” essay are here discussed and illustrated through examples from Nilson’s essays. Above all, the reflective essay represents freedom from and opposition against scientific and systematic forms of thinking and writing. In Nilson’s writing, this search for freedom has resulted in myths, fantasies and speculation confronting a scientific ideal of reason and scepticism. Another typical feature of this type of essay is its personal orientation and its focus on the personality of the essayist (or rather the persona or public representation of him or her through the text). Nilson’s persona is ambiguous; on the one hand, it represents the trained scientist and learned astronomer, on the other hand, he is engaged in a complex role play with several fictive identities. Furthermore, an important aspect of the reflective essay is its tendency to portray the image of the essayist in the process of thinking. Nilson’s essays are strongly associative; they seem to be made up by the constant flow of the author’s thoughts, which is of course an effect accomplished by literary means. In sum, the essays of Peter Nilson are meditations and ponderings on the implications of science for everyday life, as well as accounts of the h­uman fascination for myths and legendary figures. His essayistic writing could be described as fragmentary, repetitive and simultaneous: in his essays, he tries to say everything at once. For the author, essayistic writing represents  a quest for truth and meaning taking place at the borders of thought, through the confrontation of opposing perspectives.

In the Cambridge Rede Lecture of 1959, C. P. Snow expressed his thoughts on -The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution-. His idea of -the two cultures-, described as a gap between scientists and -literary intellectuals-, attracted much attention in Swedish debate from the early 1960s onwards. In this essay, I present the concept of -the two cultures- as deeply grounded in Snow-s personal experi­ences and in a British social, political and cultural climate. Furthermore, I discuss the Swedish interpretations and transfigurations of Snow-s concept and, above all, how they differ from Snow-s views. -The two cultures- is here regarded as a con­cept which was discussed in relation to certain other concepts in a Swedish inter­pretative framework. In Sweden, -the two cultures- was related to concepts like Bildung, humanism, the humanities, and science. The Swedish debate on -the two cultures- often drew from historical perspectives on these concepts, and was affected by earlier influences from German intellectual traditions. These differ­ences between Sweden and Britain, regarding cultural influences, languages and conceptions, contributed to a broader and partly different understanding of -the two cultures- in Swedish debate.

Boken handlar om den svåra konsten att värna sin personliga integritet i förhållande till modernitetens centrala maktinstitutioner: masskomm unikation, vetenskap och politik. Boken diskuterar och analyserar vår utsatthet i det moderna. Ytterst gäller denna diskussion den moderna demokratins grundfrågor. En rad framstående forskare medverkar.

This dissertation deals with how the concept of “the two cultures”, originally minted by the British writer, administrator and former scientist C.P. Snow, was interpreted and made use of in public debate in Sweden between 1959 and 2005. The major concern is to create an improved understanding of the Swedish interpretative framework that was developed around “the two cultures”, and to explore and explain the differences between Snow’s conception and various Swedish interpretations.

With inspiration and perspectives drawn from Conceptual History, “the two cultures” is regarded as a concept that was understood in relation to certain other concepts, or in connection to what could be called a “semantic field”. The Swedish interpretative framework that developed around “the two cultures” connected the concept with notions of Bildung, culture and science as well as with broader discussions around these concepts. Snow’s metaphor served as a rhetorical point of departure in debates concerning Bildung and the relationship between general education and specialization, especially in the upper secondary school. It appeared in discussions regarding the place of science and technology in culture and cultural debate, as well as in epistemological and historical descriptions and analyses of the relations between the sciences and the humanities.

The study has shown how a specific Swedish understanding developed around Snow’s concept, which slightly differed from the view of the originator. This national recontextualization often drew from historical perspectives and was affected by a cultural context somewhat different from the British one, mainly due to influences from the cultural traditions of Germany in the 19^th century.

Författarna skriver om svenska samhällsdrömmar efter andra världskriget. Vilka visioner finns om det goda samhället och vad står de för? Vilka personer engagerar sig i nuet för framtidens skull? Frigörare är personer, saker och ting som gjort anspråk på att befria oss och hjälpa oss att skapa ett bättre samhälle

ntologi. Sexton humanister om makten, medierna och medborgarkompetenser Medverkar gör bl a Lars-Eric Liedman, Viveca Adelswärd, Lars Ingelstam, Anders Björnsson och Peter Luthersson.