• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
• Publications close
• Other research products close
• Lund University Publications close
• Middle East Critique close

On 20 June 1810 Stockholm was rocked by a full-blown and violent riot. A funeral precession for the recently deceased crown prince Charles August turned into a furious riot which eventually developed into an attack on the entire existing social order. The marshal of the realm, Axel von Fersen, was killed and large crowds fought during the rest of the day regular street battles against military and police forces.This thesis is investigating the causes and consequences of the Fersen riot. By doing so I hope to be able to offer some new perspectives on this, at least in the Swedish context, unique event. Previous research has usually regarded the riot as a more or less isolated phenomenon and has often failed to investigate both root causes and long-term consequences. With the help of five theoretical concepts (see below) and several different sources (police reports from the Police Chamber of Stockholm 1810, trial records of the legal aftermath of the riot, military orders. public print. newspapers, pamphlets and handbills, letters, diaries and memoirs) I have analyzed the situation in Sweden from March 1809 to January 1811. The main result of my investigation is:Taken out of context, the Fersen riot could possibly be regarded as a temporary incident, with neither deeper causes nor significant consequences. My analysis of the dramatic events that preceded and created the conditions for the events of 20 June, together with the discussion of the protracted and shocking aftermath, has shown that the Fersen riot must be regarded as a very decisive event in the last 200 years of Swedish history. The reasons for this are:1. At the end of the year 1810 Sweden is a country in crisis, perhaps on the brink of some kind of subversive social change. Thus, the Fersen riot both explains, and is itself explained by, the bad and miserable state Sweden was perceived to be in.2. The extensive media production and the intense climate of discussion before and after the riot have undoubtedly meant an extensive and thorough learning process. For large parts of the capital´s population this period has meant an intensive course in questions and knowledge about social conditions and social change.3. The election of the heir to the throne came as a surprise to many. I believe that the chain of circumstantial evidence I have formulated makes it quite possible that the election of Bernadotte can be traced directly back to the riot and can be seen as a concession to the strong public opinion in Stockholm.4. And finally, Charles August. How can the grief, frustration and anger caused by his death be explained? Why did he become the object of an intense cult of personality? The only plausible explanation is that the role of the crown prince became the symbol of all hope and all faith in the future in the battered Sweden. Charles August became its face, both alive and dead.

Archaeological investigations have revealed cultural layers with remnants of houses and streets below up to four metres of sand at the southern end of the Falsterbo peninsula in southernmost Sweden. The cultural layers have been dated to the 15th – 16th centuries, based on finds of, for example, coins and ceramics, and interpreted to represent the medieval town Falsterbo. It has been assumed that the houses in this once central part of town, close to the church, were abandoned due to strong sand drift that eventually buried most of the structures. Here we will present results of luminescence dating, portable luminescence analysis and other geological analyses of the sand below, between and above the cultural layers. The lowermost sand is interpreted as beach sand, while all other sand beds – separating and covering the different phases of houses – are interpreted as aeolian sand. Preliminary results suggest a hiatus between the deposition of the beach sand and the first aeolian sand, followed by relatively rapid sand accumulation after final abandonment.

This dissertation explores the interplay between valuation and academic socialization, addressing the question: how do early career academics navigate evaluative landscapes? Having completed their doctoral education but yet to find stable employment, early career academics are generally viewed as the most vulnerable group of academic staff. Comparing how individuals within this group seek to demonstrate their worth in order to be recognized by others and advance in their careers, I try to make sense of their world. This task holds significance as those being socialized today will shape the cultures and practices of academia in the future. Notably, existing literature on academic socialization predominantly focuses on graduate studies, neglecting the early career phase and its function as a “status passage” in contemporary academia.Drawing upon 35 in-depth interviews with early career academics in political science and history, the three articles forming the core of the thesis highlight various aspects of navigating evaluative landscapes: how to decide whose judgment to trust when evaluating the quality of one’s work and make future predictions (Article I); how to balance between more or less contradictory identity positions and learn how to perform these identities in legitimate ways (Article II); and how to negotiate the meanings of institutional career demands and individual aspirations (Article III). By focusing attention on the plurality of evaluative landscapes in political science and history, the thesis reveals different frameworks for assessing and measuring worth. Furthermore, learning about what counts and acting upon evaluative knowledge involves signaling one’s own identity and group-belongings, as well as imagining futures early career academics find desirable. Hence, I argue for the importance of identity and morality as sites of, and motivations for, navigating evaluative landscapes.Confronted with the uncertainties and tensions of academic careers, this dissertation provides an understanding of academic career-making as a form of pragmatic problem solving, centered on how to legitimately claim, reject, perform, and balance between conflicting notions of worth. This kind of dissonance means that although early career academics in political science and history are exposed to an increasingly narrow regime of valuation, their response is not mere adaptation, but negotiation.

AbstractCounterfactual history constitutes a prominent subgenre of speculative fiction. Nevertheless, though diverging from actual historical events, such works tend to otherwise be highly realistic. Other speculative fiction goes much further, creating not only an alternative timeline but an alternate reality governed by different physical laws. This chapter coins the term “counterphysical” to describe literature that plays with the very laws of physics or nature, but remains within a rules-based, science-inspired paradigm. Examining two counterphysical stories by Ted Chiang, “Seventy-Two Letters” (2000) and “Omphalos” (2019), it argues that such works can serve as a useful tool for teaching the history of science. Counterphysical fiction can help train students to suspend their present-day understanding of science in order to comprehend the worldview and mindset of historical scientists.

AbstractThis introductory chapter makes the case that despite different epistemological starting points, history and speculative fiction are both arguably “literatures of cognitive estrangement.” Both can help expose invisible problematic aspects of their authors’ and readers’ societies and suggest possible solutions or futures. Summarizing relevant existing literature and theoretical perspectives, the chapter suggests the usefulness of the postcolonial concept of concurrences for both modes and different possible ways to define the two. It also investigates the relationship that history and speculative fiction have to colonial ideology and ecocriticism, as well as presenting the structure of the book.

This Element provides a pedagogical overview of the history of knowledge, including its main currents, distinguishing ideas, and key concepts. However, it is not primarily a state-of-the-art overview but rather an argumentative contribution that seeks to push the field in a certain direction – towards studying knowledge in society and knowledge in people's lives. Hence, the history of knowledge envisioned by the authors is not a rebranding of the history of science and intellectual history, but rather a reinvigoration of social and cultural history. This implies that many different forms of knowledge should be objects of study. By drawing on ongoing research from all across the world dealing with different time periods and problems, the authors demonstrate that the history of knowledge can enrich our understanding of past societies. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.