Reflections on almost a year of blogging

It’s been almost a year since I launched this blog. Some 40 posts have been published and a few more are in the pipeline. However, in just over a month, on February 1, 2020, it will be over. At that time, this blog project will have reached its finish line. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the manuscript for my second book. This will require some additional time for writing. 

There are several reasons why the book manuscript will not be finished. First, I knew already in advance that a year for writing a book was a pretty ambitious goal. I’m not a slow writer. Nor am I fast as a bullet. What helps me produce text is that I have good routines, good self-discipline and a good minimum level. This means that I can consistently squeeze out one page a day. Sometimes two. Only rarely more than that. 

Second, I’ve had a lot of other things requiring my attention. In 2019, I have written applications, edited two books, traveled to conferences and organized seminars. I have also received requests for a couple of small writing projects that I didn’t want to turn down. The book has been a priority during 2019. At times, however, the project has been on hold. These are the choices I have made and they are ones I accept. 

However, a project that has not slowed down my book is this blog. Before I started, I was afraid that it would consume a lot of time. To some extent, this is obviously also the case. Blog posts don’t write themselves. But at the same time, at least for me, writing has resulted in more writing. By constantly writing for publication, I have increased my speed. In addition, I have become more fearless expressing myself in writing. Unlike almost all other forms of academic writing, blogging also offers immediate feedback. This has been valuable. 

A further advantage of blogging about my writing and working process is that it results in a form of accountability. My book writing occurs in public, thus creating a form of social contract. Sure, none of you readers will punish me if there is no book in the end. But as far as I am concerned, the promise made to myself is made stronger by making it public. From time to time, I have to report on the progress of the book. This means that my blogging represents additional pressure on me to actually advance in the book project. This pressure has also been valuable. 

More important than all this, however, is the fact that this blog has taken on a greater purpose along the way. As it is now entering its final stages, I realize that it no longer primarily concerns academic writing and writing a second book. It is about what it’s like to be an academic at the beginning of his or her career and everything associated with that. 

Many of us live this kind of life. But we are rarely heard. The voice of the project researcher has no obvious forums or any obvious representatives. Yet, we represent an important part of the academy. Without us, many departments and research fields would have ground to a halt and become rigid. For our well-being, however, we need each other. We need to share experiences and help each other. I hope that this blog has played such a role and that it will continue to do so for a while. 

With these words, I thank you for this year. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! The blog will start again on January 17.

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The glass ceiling

The higher you get in the academic hierarchy, the fewer the women. This is a general pattern. Things may be balanced at the undergraduate and graduate level in different disciplines. Perhaps even more women. Among associate and full professors, however, this balance shifts. Women drop off and men remain. The theme of this blog, writing a second book, is a classic dividing line. More men than women manage to write one. If we add children into the equation, these differences become even more significant. There are very few female historians with children under the age of ten who publish a second book. But quite a few men. 

The general pattern is not exclusive to academia. It appears in all hierarchical organizations, such as the judiciary and business life. Looking at my own cohort of history PhD students in Lund, the outcome is predictable. Six or seven years after having received their PhD, some of the men have written second books, become associate professors (docent) and gained permanent faculty positions. None of the women. This despite the fact that the women have been relatively more successful among the major research funding bodies. Furthermore, several of the women have been employed in permanent, parttime administrative positions. The men have not. 

Why is that? And what can we do about it? Looking at the academic career advice literature, we find Rena Seltzer’s highly readable The Coach’s Guide for Women Professors (2015). This is a practical guide written by someone with decades’ worth of experience in coaching female academics and leaders. Among other things, it includes a great chapter on learning how to say no. This, of course, is something all ambitious academics need to learn. But it’s particularly important for women. In fact, due to current gender imbalances and gender equality requirements, they will receive considerably more inquiries than men. These may involve various forms of reviews, grading committees, supervising, committee work, etc. Men, on the other hand, stay under the radar and can uninterruptedly work on improving their CVs. Women must safeguard their time or drown in smaller tasks. 

For those wanting to read even more broadly, and with an open mind, there is Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith’s How Women Rise (2018). This is a sequel to Goldsmith’s modern classic What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (2013), focusing on the behaviors preventing successful people from reaching the next level. These books are primarily written for business executives and are based on the authors’ many years of experience in coaching this demographic. But the principles are valid in many different contexts, including academia. 

These two books are written based on an understanding that at high levels, skill, intelligence, talent or drive rarely determine who is the most successful. Everyone on the starting line has a lot of these qualities. Hence, other aspects determine the outcome. Helgesen and Goldsmith are not blind to structural causes, but their focus is on things that the individual him- or herself can do something about. They focus on behaviors in particular. And among the most dangerous are the ones that have gotten us to where we are today. The reason is that what was a virtue at one level – say, always delivering 100% – may be directly harmful at another level. A postdoc or senior lecturer must be able to let go of texts and give lectures that are good enough. There’s simply not enough time to think about each footnote and comma. Not everything you do can be a masterpiece. In such a case, you will drown in work. There won’t be enough hours in the day. 

But which habits tend to serve as obstacles for women? Helgesen and Goldsmith list twelve. These include “reluctance to claim your achievements,” “expecting others to spontaneously notice and reward your contributions,” “the perfection trap,” ‘the disease to please” and “putting your job before your career.” At least my wife, who is on track to becoming a judge, nods in agreement… Perhaps some of the female readers of this blog do the same?

Further reading on the topic: "The second book", "On the importance of a social and intellectual context", "Mobility"

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The 2014 five-year plan revisited

In the summer of 2014, I created my first ever five-year plan. That was not my idea, but an assignment in the online course PostdocTraining. It involved a great deal of effort. Before I embarked on creating it, I carried out a few exercises. They aimed to clarify who I was, where I wanted to go and what I needed to do to get there. One of these exercises involved estimating how good I was at some 40 academic tasks and the extent to which I enjoyed doing them. Another involved visualizing my ideal workday twenty years from now. From when I woke up to when I went to bed. 

They may not sound like particularly difficult exercises. But I was mentally exhausted. I wasn’t used to thinking about my life in these timescales. During my time as a PhD student, I did my best to avoid thinking about the time after I graduated. Four years felt like oceans of time. And if I only did my very best, things would probably work themselves out. After all, that had been the case so far. 

The result, as you know, was that I ended up in the basement at LUX. A humbling experience. So, I decided to carry out the exercises diligently and without any preconceived notions. My motto was try first, judge later. After a couple of weeks, I had created a five-year plan. It was obviously full of uncertain variables. But I was actually quite clear about which situation I wanted to find myself in by 2019. I wanted to be internationalized, to have secured funding for a research project in a new subject area and, by extension, to be employable. 

I looked upon internationalization as something absolutely crucial if I wanted to work as a historian. In my professional context, I noticed that those who wrote in English, regularly traveled to international conferences and became visiting scholars were rewarded with grants and positions. I had yet to do any of this. This was something I needed to change, and this is also something I have done. I now have many publications in English under my belt, I am used to international conferences and I have a rather substantial international network. With small children, it hasn’t been possible to engage in any longer visiting fellowships. In empirical terms, I have also for all intents and purposes continued to have a Swedish focus. But, on the whole, I’m quite satisfied with how I’ve worked on this. A lot has happened in five years. 

The second item has also gone according to plan. A couple of years into my time as a postdoc, I discovered the private investor blogosphere. At first, my reading was based on aimless curiosity and a fascination with an unfamiliar cultural phenomenon. Over time, I realized that this could probably be studied from a historical perspective. The key was when I started reading economic historian Orsi Husz’s articles on the financialization of everyday life. They were incredibly inspiring and served as a portal into this field. At the national history conference in Sundsvall, I approached her. The following year, we invited her to the history of knowledge seminar series in Lund. We then got her involved in an edited volume project, and next year we will work together within a module of the large research program headed by Jenny Andersson. This item on the list could certainly not have worked out any better! 

The third objective was to become employable. This is a point I’ve not really reached. I have yet to become a contender for a permanent faculty position. I hope that the second book, once finished, will enable me to be in contention. However, this obviously depends on who I am facing and what the external reviewers value. Contrary to sports based on concrete results, such as soccer or track and field, history is a sport based on receiving scores from judges. There are a lot of things I’m unable to influence. 

So, what would me in 2014 think of the years that have passed? Would he have been satisfied with the outcome? Yes, I’m absolutely certain that he would. My postdoc years have been my best time in academia. Each year, my work has become more interesting and the stage bigger. I think that the five-year plan I drafted in the summer of 2014 has something to do with this. Long-term planning makes dreams and ambitions more concrete. It offers tools for prioritizing and having the courage to do things that seem scary. In a few weeks’ time, the time has thus come to create my second five-year plan.

Further reading: The Basement

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Chaper 6 and 7

During the last few weeks, I have sort of gotten started on writing the sixth chapter in my second book. It’s about how an organized Swedish environmental movement started to emerge during the years around 1970. My point of entry into this theme is the youth organization Nature and Youth Sweden (Fältbiologerna), which I wrote about together with Anna Kaijser. Our article serves as a point of departure for the chapter, albeit supplemented by press material and other studies. 

The structure of the chapter is quite clear. I start by highlighting how a couple of hundred members gathered at Sergels Torg in Stockholm in March 1969 to protest against the expansion of hydro electric power in northern Sweden. This demonstration aroused a fair amount of media attention at the time. These young people were “no ordinary demonstrators.” The organization was associated with bird watching and outdoor life – not political manifestations. However, this would change in the years around 1970. Nature and Youth Sweden became an active and highly visible part of the new environmental movement. 

In order to show the effects of this transformation, I carry out a chronological review of the history of Nature and Youth Sweden from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. At the beginning of this period, the association is firmly rooted in an older tradition of nature conservation. The key aspects here include experiencing, studying and preserving wild nature. When a member of Nature and Youth Sweden talks about “environmental degradation” in 1961, it means that esthetic values are under threat. They are concerned that a highly productive cultural landscape with cultivated fields and pine and spruce trees will expand at the expense of the untouched expanses. 

A couple of years later, in the wake of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), they start to discuss toxic substances and birds dying. But there is hardly any talk of a global environmental crisis threatening the survival of humankind. However, this theme will become important in the late 1960s. That is to say, after environmental issues have achieved their major breakthrough in Sweden in the fall of 1967. Initially, this is an incipient environmental movement taking shape. By the beginning of the 1970s, a radicalization has occurred. Nature and Youth Sweden makes a name for itself in the form of demonstrations and direct actions. A particular target is the environmental policy establishment in the form of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. 

I expect the above to result in about 15 pages of text. That’s not enough for a chapter. That is why I plan to spend another 5 to 7 pages on, based on other research, adopting a broader approach to the emerging environmental movement. This includes Carl Holmberg’s study of the Centre Party’s Youth Organization, Jonas Anshelm’s analyses of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and Per Lundin’s unpublished study on the activist scientist Björn Gillberg and the establishment of Miljöcentrum (Environmental Center). I have also collected some press material that may supplement my presentation. 

The end of the chapter is to focus on the media controversies surrounding Björn Gillberg. This serves as somewhat of a bridge to the seventh and final empirical chapter in my book, which will concern open conflicts and conflicting claims of knowledge. This is something characterizing how environmental knowledge and knowledge regarding the future circulated in Swedish society in the early 1970s. During the breakthrough phase in 1967–1968, there was a strong consensus regarding the gravity of environmental issues, and Hans Palmstierna served as somewhat of a unifying figure in this regard. In 1971, when this knowledge had started to be translated into politics and law, it was no longer the case that everyone agreed with each other. In 1971, for example, Hans Palmstierna ended up in an open conflict with representatives of the industrial sector. In the spring of 1972, a polarized debate on the future raged between two professors, the “prophet of doom” Gösta Ehrensvärd and the “techno-scientific optimist” Tor Ragnar Gerholm. 

However, actually writing chapter 7 will be a task for 2020. Before I can start working on that, there is a lot more I need to finish. To begin with, writing chapter 6 has turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. I’m not really sure why. It’s not that it has completely ground to a halt, but writing two pages a day is certainly not doable. Perhaps this is due to the lack of sunlight in November? Perhaps I have too many things going at the same time? Or perhaps it’s simply due to a long book project and a long semester starting to take their toll.

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What academics can learn from Andre Agassi

One of the books that has made the greatest impression on me this year is Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open (2010). Among a plethora of other things, it is about Agassi hating – and basically always having hated – playing tennis. The choice to seek to become an international top player was never his own. It was his father’s. From the time he was able to hold a racket, he was drilled in playing tennis. Tennis was never fun. It was never an interest. It was something Agassi was good at, thus becoming his job. 

In this regard, the life of Agassi resembles that of many others. There are lots of people working with something because, for one reason or another, they have to do it. Many people spend their days on things they are good at because someone else pays them a lot of money to do so. Being able to turn your interest into a livelihood is hardly a human right. 

Nevertheless, one of the most common pieces of career and life advice is: Do what you love! Follow your passion! It’s only when you truly enjoy something that you can get really good at it. Only those who love playing tennis can become the number one player in the world. But is this really the case? Do you have to be passionate about something to get really good at it? What really happens when people find a job they love? 

The latter question is at the center of Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You (2016), another of my 2019 reading highlights. This book is a rejection of the above standard advice. Newport argues that people rarely become happy simply by following their dreams. Many crash and burn on the way. Truly wanting something won’t take you very far when you are facing the Swedish Idol panel of judges or applying for an assistant professor position. 

Hence, Newport advises his readers to skip the “what do I really want to do with my life” phase. He thinks it’s a better idea to strive to be really good at something valued by others. If you do, you will be in a good position to create the career and the life you want. In addition, many people who are really good at something learn to appreciate it. The hatred is rarely as deep-seated as that of Agassi. 

All of this may seem alien to people working in the scholarly community. In the humanities in particular, there is plenty of deeprooted idealism. A lot of us ending up here have, against our better judgment, followed our interests and let these guide us. Those who in their early twenties thought about their future careers, mortgages and family vacations in Thailand obviously studied completely different subjects. 

At the same time, I believe there are many students in the humanities who continued much further than they initially planned precisely because they turned out to be good at it. They were good at studying for exams, analyzing texts and writing essays. A few words of encouragement from a teacher in a thematic course or an undergraduate seminar had major consequences. Perhaps you even turned out to be particularly talented in a research area you weren’t interested in whatsoever? According to Newport, this would not be particularly surprising – quite the opposite. Frequently, he argues, skill comes first followed by a deeper interest. 

But what can we learn from Agassi’s story? Well, one thing is that it’s clearly possible to be very good at something you truly despise. This lesson may be useful to keep in mind for those who find it difficult getting themselves to write grant applications, speak to a large audience or network at a conference. Tough luck. Not everything is fun. Sometimes, it’s simply a matter of doing your job and getting good at it. Maybe even so good that they can’t ignore you.

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Writing about teaching and learning

In the fall of 2016, I was asked by professor Klas-Göran Karlsson to be part of an edited volume project on teaching history at university level. He had an idea that I could write something about thematic and chronological aspects of teaching history. These were issues I had to some extent wrestled with when writing my thesis. It sounded like an exciting and difficult challenge and it didn’t take me long to accept. 

All in all, we were around a dozen people in my department who met for over a year to discuss ideas, experiences and chapter drafts. There was a wide range of people in the group. There were newly graduated PhDs with limited teaching experience and professors with decades of teaching under their belt. Some approached the pedagogical theme from perspectives based on theory and the philosophy of history. Others started off in concrete teaching situations and practical choices. 

Myself, I had a hard time starting to write. I didn’t feel that my own thoughts and experiences were sufficient. So, I set aside time to read and follow leads. In some way, I needed to find something worth building upon. A few years later, I can no longer accurately recreate this reading process. But I definitely recall when I found my way. The key text was Lendol Calder’s “Uncoverage: Toward a New Signature Pedagogy for the History Survey” (2006). I found it deeply inspiring. It was concrete without being boring. Theoretically sophisticated without being abstract and fussy. In addition, it was written in a sharp and smart fashion. 

For me, this text served as a portal. I read everything from Calder I could get my hands on. Through the footnotes, I followed the leads backward. Via Google Scholar, I checked out the ones who had cited him. During a few weeks, I made intellectual discoveries one after the other. If I were to choose the one thing in my profession I like the most, this is it. When new worlds open up and my reading, so to speak, cascades. 

In relation to this, I was asked by Henrik Rosengren, at that time editor of Scandia, whether I wanted to write a “Scandia introduces” piece. Some six months earlier, I had proposed a different subject, but the scholarship of teaching and learning track now seemed more attractive. As a result, I pitched the idea of writing about Lendol Calder’s pedagogical ideas. The result was the text “Avtäckningsmodellen: En undervisningsform med framtiden för sig?” (2017). It was later expanded into the longer book chapter “Kan vi göra på något annat sätt? Utblickar och tankar kring färdighetsorienterad historieundervisning” included in the edited volume Att undervisa i historia på universitetet (2018). 

An important consequence of this work was that Andrés Brink Pinto was inspired by my literature findings. We had each started to test some new approaches in our own teaching. These, we thought, turned out to be successful. Hence, in a low-intensity and organic fashion, a deeper collaboration emerged. In recent years, there have been conference presentations, a couple of joint texts and even a small research project together with Emma Severinsson on how students learn. 

A couple of weeks ago, we had the privilege to visit Örebro where Henric Bagerius and the other historians at the department have revised the undergraduate program on the basis of the same pedagogical ideas we were attracted to. Being able to take part in this work and discuss teaching issues with a cohesive team of teachers with real power over how teaching is to be designed was extremely stimulating. It will be very exciting to follow how their initiatives turn out! 

I could hardly have imagined that all this would follow from Klas-Göran’s invitation in the fall of 2016. But this is often the case with edited volume projects. They have side effects. Not least by facilitating new areas of cooperation. Controlling exactly what will happen, however, is quite difficult. For example, Klas-Göran himself had to address the questions of thematic and chronological teaching of history. This is often the case for research directors. To a large extent, their role is to give other academics opportunities, resources and challenges. What happens next is up to others. As economic historian Kerstin Enflo put it during a seminar this spring, managing academics is “like herding cats.” Myself, I have some history of knowledge experiences of trying to “herd.” In this context, however, I was one of the cats.

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Trial lecture in Lund

Today, a series of trial lectures has been organized for a position as assistant professor of history in Lund. I was one of the people who applied but not one of the people asked to give a trial lecture. Instead, I am at Häckeberga Castle, where Johan Östling, Anna Nilsson Hammar and I are organizing a two-day workshop on the future for the history of knowledge. We are surrounded by good friends, close colleagues and new acquaintances. This is without a doubt one of the highlights of the semester. Yesterday’s traditional Scanian goose dinner was top notch. 

If, however, given the choice, I would have preferred being in Lund today and lecturing on the theme “Why is historical knowledge important?” Permanent positions in history are not readily available. Positions as assistant professor are particularly desirable and notoriously difficult to get. For those who are not mobile or consider long-distance commuting an alternative, there are few chances. It may take many years before they become available. For me, this was the first time since I received my PhD in 2013 that I had a real opportunity in Lund. This window is now closed. Of course, there is a measure of sadness in this. Both in not getting the position and in not being deemed a serious contender. It hurt when the news came that I was not shortlisted. I felt rejected and as if my value was called into question. 

Neither my situation nor my feelings are unique. These things happen all the time in academia. It’s “all in the game” and exists at all levels. Sure, there are those who get accepted the first time they apply for a PhD position, receive a postdoc position or research funding directly after finishing their PhD and then land an assistant professor position or the equivalent. But these people are few and far between. Very few. And, twenty years later, they are not always the most influential or have made the greatest impact. There are many winding paths to academic success. There are also many paths, straight and winding, to professional bitterness. But those paths are not for me. That is not how I intend to roll. That is something I promised myself a long time ago. Come what may, it’s been a great journey. I’m grateful for what I have experienced and proud of what I’ve accomplished. 

The setbacks I have experienced so far have not prevented me from doing what I want. Nor will this one. I haven’t studied history, written a thesis or become an associate professor (docent) in order to get a permanent position. Of course, I want to be able to support my family. But what drives me is not – nor has it ever been – financial security. I want to grow, learn things, write, meet exciting people, read books and discover worlds. In recent years, I have also become increasingly interested in building something larger than myself. Being involved in creating a research environment with a nascent international reputation is very exciting. And none of this really has all that much to do with my employment status. Perhaps the fact that I will for the foreseeable future be a project researcher is even an advantage. There are many meetings I don’t have to attend. There are many fires I don’t need to put out. 

In addition, the five people giving trial lectures today are all good historians and nice people. I have known four of them for about a decade. I’m convinced that regardless of who gets the job, Lund University will have made a good recruitment. However, the one I am rooting for is my friend Martin Ericsson. I have the deepest respect for him as an academic and as a human being. He is an important part of the future of Swedish historical research and deserves a platform from which to work. Good luck, Martin! Your trial lecture will be awesome!

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Digital minimalism

Academic work, and especially writing, requires focus and perseverance. According to Cal Newport, author of Deep Work (2017) and Digital Minimalism (2019), these are two abilities that have become increasingly rare in the 2010s. In a single decade, smartphones and social media have fundamentally changed people’s behavior. Most people spend many hours every day on their phones. Hence, according to Newport, being one of those who do not represents a great competitive advantage. The value of focus and perseverance has never been greater. 

The behaviors he opposes are not particularly difficult to explain. Several of the most highly valued companies globally now operate in the so-called “attention economy.” Their business model is that as many people as possible should spend as much time as possible on their particular platform. The more screen time, the more revenue. As a result, these products are designed to encourage and maintain specific behaviors. It’s no coincidence that feeds follow the same principle as a slot machine. Hit refresh, perhaps there’s an update? Or a like showing that someone notices you. 

I have experienced this myself every Tuesday during this year when I have advertised my weekly blog posts on Facebook and Twitter. It’s very difficult, not to say impossible, not to check how this week’s post is doing. Any likes? Any comments? How many readers this week compared to the one before? This is not a good recipe for maintaining focus and exhibiting perseverance. The good stuff is always a click away. The sense of unpredictability only makes it more attractive. Email may have the exact same function. Because who knows what’s to be found in the inbox? 

Newport’s two books offer practical strategies for managing the state we’re in full of distractions. The core of these books is “intentionalism.” In other words, we ourselves need to figure out how we want to use different digital technologies and develop a “digital philosophy” serving as our foundation. Based on this, we may then establish personal rules regarding what, when, how much and in which ways we want to use different platforms. Unless we do this, we will probably spend more time on these than we really want to. A quick glance easily turns into 15 minutes of lazy surfing. A few chips easily turn into an empty bag. 

But how do you figure out how you want to live in this regard? As a first step, Newport recommends uninstalling everything and spending 30 days offline. After that, you may make well-considered decisions on what, when, how and how much. Which platforms and features offer value and quality of life? Which do not? Is it possible to get everything I want out of Facebook by using it for 30 minutes every Wednesday night? Do I need Instagram? Is it sufficient that I only check my inbox after lunch? 

The answers to these questions are not given. They differ from individual to individual. As far as I am concerned, however, I don’t find these problems particularly difficult at work. Here, I’m pretty good at setting the timer on my phone to 40 minutes, carrying out my unit followed by a break. In the lunchroom, I rarely have a strong need to check my cellphone or send a text message. At home, however, I find this more difficult. Here, it’s much more common that I do the things I don’t want to do (email after office hours, scroll through Facebook or Twitter). Perhaps it’s time to hide the phone and have a few days offline? 

In fact, my wife and I actually tried this during the summer. We both read Digital Minimalism and decided to fully try out this concept for a certain period of time. Among other things, this includes scheduling social time. So, when the kids went to sleep at night, going to bed or reading a book was not an option for us. We should talk even if we were tired! The experiment was quite successful. We managed three weeks offline and these were three lovely weeks. In particular, we appreciated going to playgrounds and on family excursions without bringing a cellphone. We felt so free. Nothing could disturb us. We ourselves decided what we wanted our vacation to look like. This is why we also continued using this “technique” in the fall. When the whole family is going to do something together, we frequently leave our cellphones at home. I hope we will continue to do so!

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Co-writing: Part 3

The third person with whom I co-wrote in the spring of 2016 was Johan Östling. We knew each other well, although not nearly as well as we do now. At this time, we had worked together for a couple of years to introduce and develop the history of knowledge in the Nordics. Johan was a research director. I was a postdoc and funded through his project. Hence, this writing project differed from the ones I was engaged in with Isak Hammar (part 1) and Anna Kaijser (part 2). The stakes were higher. I really didn’t want to botch this. At the same time, I experienced a great deal of safety. If there was one article I was certain would be of high quality and flow smoothly through the peer-review process, it was this one. 

The article we wrote concerned “circulation.” It was a theoretical, historiographical and conceptual text. It thus differed from everything I had written thus far. There was no firm empirical core. As a result, our writing efforts began with a broad reading of secondary literature, especially history of science literature. The key text was James Secord’s “Knowledge in Transit” (2004), but we moved across broad fields: early modern global history of science, history of popular science and Swiss-style history of knowledge. Much of this was new to me, and I felt that I would need a long time getting ready to write. 

However, Johan soon said that we should get started. I trusted his judgment, so we sat down, discussed our ideas and drafted a synopsis. We then divided up the parts and started writing. It went surprisingly smoothly. A coherent text started to take shape, and I felt that I learned a lot during the course of writing. I wasn’t used to working like this. I typically needed much more time to get started. 

Nevertheless, we finished our manuscript. We asked a couple of colleagues to read it, reworked it a bit and then sent it to Historisk tidskrift (HT). At the end of the semester, Johan suggested that we should translate it into English and submit it to Journal of Modern History. No sooner said than done. I felt that my research existence had moved up a gear. Was it really possible to work this quickly? 

The months passed, and one day we received the comments from HT. One reviewer was positive and one was very negative. I don’t recall the exact wording, but it started something like this: “This is an ambitious article aiming for the stars. These can be very good or very bad. This is the latter.” The editor expressed regret about the comment and said that the article could not be accepted. However, we were given the chance to cut it by half and have it published as an essay. Spontaneously, we felt that this was out of the question. We had submitted a really good, well-written article serving as a significant contribution to general history (in our view!). Surely, we couldn’t cut it in half and turn it into some lightweight essay… 

But after having looked it over with fresh eyes the following day, this was exactly what we did. Pride is to be swallowed and the tough reviewer had clearly made some good points. In addition, we were keen to get our ideas out quickly and not wait for another six months to – perhaps – publish the text in another journal. In the spring of 2017, the essay “Cirkulation – ett kunskapshistoriskt nyckelbegrepp” was thus published. 

We also encountered difficulties in Journal of Modern History. But not at all for the same reasons. We received a “revise and resubmit,” but our revision received some severe criticism (especially the parts I had been responsible for revising). However, this was not the end of the story. At the same time as all this was going on, we had initiated a Nordic edited volume project: Circulation of Knowledge (2018). This needed an introduction and there were a few things here and there that we could use from our failed article project. We wouldn’t have been able to do so had our text been “under publication” in Journal of Modern History. Failing there thus turned out to be something positive. We managed to publish the most important elements in the text in a book that was open access and which – it would turn out – ended up being read by people from all over the world. Our text ended up placing the history of knowledge environment in Lund on the world map, and Johan was invited to Washington DC, Cambridge, Sydney, Paris… 

At the same time, we were, once again, fully engaged in writing applications. Here as well, the text we had written proved useful. We were soundly rejected by a large number of funding bodies, but we did get a positive reply from the Ridderstad Foundation. In addition, Johan went on to the next stage with an ERC application, which was to a large extent based on our English circulation text. He eventually didn’t make it across the finish line, but the same text was useful when he later had the opportunity to apply to become a Wallenberg Academy Fellow. Here, he hit the bull’s eye. 

What I want to illustrate with all this is that some of the texts we write circulate in many different ways. They turn into publications, applications, successes and failures. In hindsight, things may seem obvious, but in the middle of the process, it’s impossible to know what is what. It is thus important to keep moving, trying to notice opportunities and not being too depressed when things fail. Because they will. Even when working with Johan Östling. However, and as I have pointed out in previous posts in this series, all this is much easier to handle when you’re writing together with someone else. In such a case, adversities don’t feel personal. And success is better when shared.

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Win some, lose some

At around 3 p.m. yesterday, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation published its decisions for this year regarding which projects and programs are to receive funding. The majority of applications were rejected as early as this spring. Of the ones remaining, about half would be given funding. As for me, I had two opportunities in relation to the same research idea. Both in the form of an individual project and in the context of a large program. On paper, my chances were good. But, as we all know, probabilities and outcomes are two different things. 

An hour or so after lunch, I received the first announcement. My individual project was rejected. The two experts offered similar criticisms in their opinions, but they reached different conclusions. One recommended the project, while the other had “mixed feelings” but argued that it should be rejected. When reading the comments, feelings of emptiness washed over me. Followed by a nagging feeling of doubt. In myself and in the project. 

At the same time as I frequently updated the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation website, I also tried to get some work done. That didn’t go so well. And for each update, it felt as if my chances decreased. There was not much left of the confidence I had experienced that morning. I saw a long series of future rejections before my eyes. After a while, I emailed the comments to my wife and started to process them over the phone. In the middle of a discussion on how I could improve my application next spring, Johan Östling came downstairs and congratulated me. Jenny Andersson’s program Neoliberalism in the Nordics: Developing an Absent Theme had been accepted! 33.1 million Swedish kronor! Six years! 

The meaning of this has not yet begun to sink in. It will probably be a while. On a personal level, it’s obviously tremendous that several years of research have been secured. However, a research program of this magnitude means so much more. It offers an almost unique opportunity for academics to work together on major and challenging issues. The kind that, in individual projects, you often have to be content with “highlighting” or “offering perspectives on.” In addition, the research group gathered by Jenny is impressive. It’s extremely inspiring to get the opportunity to be part of this context. I will surely learn a lot! 

So, what am I going to research? Well, something completely different from what I am now writing a monograph on. The new project concerns the profound transformation of the Swedish savings and investment culture over the past four decades. What I will primarily focus on is the popularization of stock saving and the circulation of financial knowledge. My primary empirical entry is the Swedish Shareholders’ Association, whose archives have recently been deposited at the Centre for Business History in Stockholm. In the project, I will also analyze the emergence of the phenomenon known as FIRE (financial independence, retire early). That is to say, living extremely frugally and investing in stocks or index funds in order to be able to quit your job in your thirties or forties and live the rest of your life on capital gains and dividends. 

There is always a special feeling involved in taking aim at a new research area and it’s certainly a bit scary. I feel at home in the environmental debate of the late 1960s. With regard to the financial culture of the 1980s, however, I am a novice. But there is obviously also an appeal in this. As an academic, I find not knowing to be the most exciting part of research. Because that is the phase when you get to experience discoveries and insights more frequently! 

But, of course, feeling at home is not a bad feeling either. And Hans Palmstierna’s correspondence is captivating. Good thing I still have some writing left to do!

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What to do when things get busy?

Regardless of how well you plan, there are periods when things get busy. Mid-October is a typical such period. I obviously have no idea what your calendars look like, but mine is filled to the brim. There are conferences, workshops, various deadlines and commitments. In addition, there are some major and important announcements I am waiting for. Of course, I’m unable to do anything about these. Nevertheless, it’s difficult not to think about them. 

When the calendar starts to fill up, there are two things that are typically neglected: time for planning and physical exercise. Skipping these quickly gives you a few extra hours. Time that can be used to push onward. In my experience, however, this kind of behavior is counterproductive. If there is a time when I need to clean my head with a run, it’s when I’m stressed. If there is a time when I need to set aside an afternoon for planning, it’s when I feel that I don’t have enough working hours. 

A technique I tend to use in such situations originates from David Allen’s modern classic Getting Things Done (2001). The point is to sit down with an empty piece of paper and write down everything entering your mind. Job stuff, private stuff, worries – everything that comes up. Simply put, a brain dump. The aim is to achieve a complete overview of all the “projects” currently in progress. In this context, projects refer to everything requiring you to take one or more actions. Allen refers to these as “open loops.” 

Step two involves thinking about what needs to be done to push each individual project forward and – in a best-case scenario – to be closed down. The key question is: what is the next action I need to take? This may involve minuscule things: printing an article, sending a reminder email or buying a train ticket. The point is that even if you’re unable to do everything at once, it’s good to know exactly what you need to do next (in all ongoing projects!). This makes the situation more concrete. This means that you can do something about it. 

The third step is to consider when the various actions are to be carried out. A basic rule, for which Allen is famous, is the two-minute rule. That is, if it takes less than two minutes – do it! If it takes longer – decide when to do it. This is particularly important when the calendar is full. What may be postponed? What needs to be done in the next week? What can be finished if you happen to have 15 minutes available before a lunch meeting? 

A key principle is to try to have as few open loops as possible. The reason is that they drain you of energy and require your attention. You become like an old, slow computer with lots of open programs. For the computer to work, you need to close down a few programs. This, according to Allen, also applies to people. By finishing things – submitting a proof for a book chapter, creating a PowerPoint presentation, booking a hotel room or correcting exams and entering grades – a loop is closed. The project is gone. Out of sight, out of mind. To continue using the above analogy, this frees up RAM capacity in the old computer. Suddenly, Word works again! 

For true GTD fans, this approach is more or less considered a lifestyle. Myself, I’m not really that hardcore. But, in mid-October, when the calendar fills up and I feel that I have less and less control, this is the technique I turn to. I did so as recently as last. I had set aside time intending to write, but my head was not in it. Everything was spinning around. This meant an empty piece of paper, a brain dump and a ventilation lunch. After that, the slow, old computer started working again…

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Research from scratch

The book I’m writing has emerged over the course of five years. In addition to the introductory and final chapter, it will consist of six empirical chapters. Most of these are based on studies I have already carried out and published. The primary purpose of my book is to collect the different studies and give me room to make four to five significant points. In addition, I want to make my research available to more people through the book format. 

There are a number of advantages associated with this approach of going from journal articles to books. Not least the fact that I can write the actual book relatively quickly. Some chapters only require a slight revision of previous works. The fourth chapter, which I wrote before the summer vacation, was an example of this. This chapter is called “Två kvinnliga pionjärer” (Two Female Pioneers) and focuses on how journalist Barbro Soller and historian Birgitta Odén at the same time – but in different ways – developed a strong environmentalist commitment. This resulted in their lives and careers changing course. Here, my work primarily concerned translating my own text from English into Swedish (Soller) and making a journal article shorter (Odén). 

However, the chapter I’m currently working on, the fifth, has a completely different character. It is, to refer to Martin Ericsson, “research from scratch.” This chapter is based on Hans Palmstierna’s personal archives and is mainly based on letters. In the late fall of 1967, Palmstierna became Sweden’s first truly influential environmentalist – something highly noticeable in the correspondence that has survived. From this time until his death in 1975, a lot of people wrote letters to him. I may thus use these letters to get insights into the chain reaction of activity initiated by the breakthrough of environmental issues in Swedish society. Analyzing this material is incredibly fascinating. 

The material includes letters from students, bankers, high school teachers and priests. It includes communists and conservatives, centrists and liberals. Politically, however, it is dominated by social democrats. Palmstierna was an active party member, and in 1967–1968, he was given increasingly important tasks. For instance, he belonged to the group preparing the Social Democrats’ first environmental policy program. In March 1968, he left the Karolinska Institute to work at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Six months later, he joined the Environmental Advisory Council. 

Even more interesting, however, is to see how he was invited to public television and the various branches of the labor movement. Most important in this context was the fact that in December 1967, the cooperative insurance company Folksam (the largest insurance company in Sweden at the time) decided to launch the first national environmental campaign: “Front mot miljöförstöringen” (Front against Environmental Degradation). Hans Palmstierna prepared the study material, recorded videos and designed the campaign. The basic idea was to get young people involved in environmental issues so that they would then exert pressure on decision-makers. The campaign culminated in the spring of 1969, when school students throughout Sweden organized public hearings with local politicians and business leaders. 

At this time, there was no “environmental movement” in the current sense of the word. There was no Greenpeace, no Friends of the Earth, and the term “Green Wave” had yet to be coined. But people’s involvement in relation to the environment was on the rise and it was channeled – as shown by the Folksam campaign – through established social organizations. The letter material also shows that student associations adopted a prominent role. At the Chalmers University of Technology, a group of architectural students created the exhibition “Än sen då” (So What?). It was launched in the spring of 1968 after which it toured the country. Other students signed up as volunteers in the new popular movement beginning to take shape. None of this existed in the spring of 1967. 

Exactly how this chapter will turn out remains to be seen. I have given myself some 25 pages and outlined a rough structure that is essentially chronological. The latter aspect is important to me since one of my points with this chapter is to highlight chain reactions. In other words, showing how someone’s actions led others to do something, which, in turn, had further consequences. To some extent, I also want to show how the “reaction time” differed between different organizations and groups. 

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that this represents a fun and creative phase of the research and writing process. I here find a sense of productive uncertainty not found in chapters where the bulk of my work was done a long time ago. Obviously, I also find lots of new leads that I’m curious to follow up. What, for example, is hidden in the Folksam archives? How difficult would it be to get in contact with people involved in hearings in the spring of 1969? What is preserved in school basements? Such as at Porthälla in Partille, which in April 1968 organized an environmental week ending with Hans Palmstierna coming to give a presentation. And what can we find out about the hundreds of study circles organized by adult education associations ABF, Vuxenskolan and others? 

There is certainly no shortage of ideas. But if I am to finish this book, further research will have to wait. “Get a plan and stick to it,” as the saying goes. But it’s certainly tempting to turn over just another stone.

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Mobility

Earlier this year, Universitetsläraren, a magazine aimed at Swedish academics, wrote about the relative immobility of its readers. A figure mentioned in this context was that about 65 percent of Swedish historians were employed at the same university where they received their PhD. An anonymous academic was interviewed and talked about the difficulties of entering the Swedish system following a career abroad. Heiko Droste, professor of history at Stockholm University, related that he cynically used to say to his PhD students: “If you want a permanent position, never ever move.” Nevertheless, he encouraged them to move: “It’s good for you as an academic.” 

These articles were quickly shared on social media. In my feed, however, there was no direct debate. This is obviously not due to people not having any opinions on the issue of mobility. It’s because the subject is extremely sensitive. It concerns life choices. It is about who is allowed to participate and who is not allowed to do so. It is about what is highly valued and what is not. 

Furthermore, it’s a matter of different systems overlapping and colliding with each other. In, for instance, the American system, mobility is an institutionalized practice. The option to stay on does not exist. This is also the case in Sweden in the fields of natural science and medicine. If you enter the game of research in these environments, you already know – as a PhD student – that it will soon be time for you to pack your bags and leave. Without an international postdoc, you’re not employable. Immobility is a stigma. 

Should the situation be the same within the Swedish humanities? Is it possible to create stronger research environments if more academics move around? Who, then, are going to move? When in life should this occur? How long do you need to be away for? What are the consequences in terms of who has the opportunity to have an academic career? Does this benefit women or men? Are there any class aspects with regard to this phenomenon? Is it possible to combine the mobility ideal with having a family and a partner who’s also pursuing a career? 

There are no simple or obvious answers to these questions. Not at the system or the individual level. This is primarily due to the fact that, for obvious reasons, the individuals mainly affected – young academics without a permanent position – rarely speak out in the debate. This is not a question in which people want to make a name for themselves. Regardless of your opinion, you are bound to step on someone’s toes. The safe alternative is to remain silent. 

But there are exceptions. Last year, Karolina Enquist Källgren blogged about her lonely international year in Barcelona. A couple of weeks ago, My Hellsing launched a series of blog posts about her time as an international postdoc. They both adopt a broad perspective on their time abroad. Their experiences do not only concern research and work. Their posts also concern life, well-being and interactions with others. These aspects are sometimes forgotten when senior academics discuss the careers and life choices of younger colleagues. 

As far as I am concerned, I have limited experience of living and researching abroad. With the exception of a short visiting scholar stay in Oslo in the spring of 2017 (which was very successful and rewarding), I have worked at the Department of History at Lund University. I have been an undergraduate student, PhD student, lecturer with a temporary contract and an externally funded researcher in the same spot. Has this hampered me as an academic? Has it been smart from a career perspective? I don’t know. It’s hardly up to me to judge.

 Perhaps, it is not possible to evaluate the effects on your career of doing – or not doing – an international postdoc as soon as five to six years after having received your PhD. In general, Swedish historians don’t tend to find permanent positions that quickly. Hence, it is difficult to know what will be seen as valuable and what will not. As far as my academic generation is concerned, we don’t yet know who is allowed to participate and who is not (or under which conditions). Nor do we know what will be the consequences of various networks and contacts. This applies to local, national and international networks and contacts alike. What is clear, however, is that the effects on life as a result of different career choices are immediate. That is why I’m glad that those with practical experiences choose to write about these.

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Why edited volumes?

Not all forms of publications are valued the same. Some offer high status, have a large impact in terms of being offered permanent positions and make it easier to obtain external research funding. Others are less important. According to Karen Kelsky, author of The Professor Is In (2015), recognizing the hierarchies in publication constitutes one of the crucial differences between established academics and PhD students. The former know what counts and act accordingly. The latter grope in the dark. 

In particular, Kelsky advises her readers not to get published in the form of book chapters in edited volumes. For anyone wanting to work in academia, these kinds of chapters, as well as book reviews, represent a waste of time and energy. The focus should instead be on peer-reviewed journal articles (“the gold standard”) and, in book-based fields such as history, publishing monographs with renowned publishers. Such articles make you competitive for being given a tenure-track position, while a book gives you tenure. Book chapters represent a way of burying your research and hampering your career. 

If Kelsky is right, then the majority of Swedish historians are doing it wrong. Here, a large amount of research is published in the form of edited volumes. In fact, some fields and research environments are created around these. What would media history look like had it not been for edited volumes? What would the research field related to historical cultures look like? Obviously, the individual academics in these fields have also published journal articles and books. But edited volumes have played a key role in terms of creating larger conversations and networks. Collective book projects bring people closer together and create shared points of reference. It’s hard to overemphasize the value of this, in particular in the long run. 

As far as I am concerned, I have had good experiences during the last couple of years working in and with various edited volume projects. A particularly successful example here is the newly published Efterkrigstidens samhällskontakter (2019) edited by Fredrik Norén and Emil Stjernholm. For the editors, this was a side project they were engaged in at the same time as they were finishing their respective theses. Many supervisors would advise against doing this, but I would argue that it represents an excellent way of preparing yourself for life as a postdoc. Being an editor offers you experience, contacts and visibility – three things that play an important role in making the transition from PhD student to postdoc as smooth as possible. In addition, it offers skills in relation to juggling several projects at the same time. And such skills are critical after you receive your PhD. 

In my view, Efterkrigstidens samhällskontakter is an excellent book. I hope it gets a large number of engaged readers. But even if it’s not read, discussed or used all that widely, it will have played an important role simply by coming into being. This is because the process leading to a finished book has been exemplary. It started with a symposium in the fall of 2017, continued with two workshops in 2018, and simultaneously with the final work in 2019, the book has been presented at a number of conferences. Some individuals have participated in all of these steps. Others only in some of them. Without a doubt, however, all of these seminars, lunches, coffee breaks and dinners have resulted in a group of people getting to know each other reasonably well. 

This social function, I would argue, is the most important function of the edited volume genre. In this regard, these books do something journal articles and monographs do not. They help create the social networks upon which scholarly conversations are based. 

Sure, it is possible to organize workshops, symposiums and seminar series without these resulting in edited volumes or a special issue. In my experience, however, collaborations are strengthened when working toward some form of joint product. This involves a great deal of work – especially for the editors – but for the scholarly community as a whole, it represents a deeply meaningful endeavor.

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Skill-related goals

Most of my planning concerns prioritizing what should be done and when. However, before each academic year, I tend to set up a more long-term skill-related goal. This concerns something I can’t do or am not comfortable doing but which in the long run I want to – or need to – be able to do. In previous years, such goals have included being comfortable writing in English and using PowerPoint. Last academic year, my goal was to learn how to write a book that was not a thesis.

In my experience, an academic year is a quite reasonable amount of time to learn something new. It is sufficient time to play down whatever it is you’re trying to learn. This means plenty of time to try, fail and try again. At the same time, this is not an infinite amount of time. If you want to get something done, you can’t wait for too long. 

The background of this routine is my experiences from the basement at LUX. In other words, my lowest point as a postdoc when I truly realized that if I wanted to work as a historian, I had a lot left to learn. What I was and what I knew were not sufficient for getting to do what I wanted to do. Hence, I identified a number of skills I needed to learn: write peer-reviewed journal articles, prepare applications, become a confident lecturer, etc. However, I was unable to learn all of this at once. Nor was everything equally important in the situation I found myself in at the time. That is why I gave myself permission not to worry about everything at once but to focus on learning one thing at a time and then trust the process. 

The year of skill training from which I have the strongest memories was when I was supposed to learn to write in English. It was the academic year 2015–2016 and I had just received a two-year postdoc position through the Crafoord Foundation. This was the longest contract I had been given after receiving my PhD and I really wanted to make the best of this opportunity. The memory of being on my september way out of the system was still fresh in my mind. I was well-aware of the fact that peer-reviewed articles in international journals carried much weight. That is why I decided to mainly write in English for one year – even though it was tedious work for me. I made sure to write whole manuscripts and let colleagues accustomed to writing in English read them. This was also the year in which I wrote journal articles together with Isak Hammar and Anna Kaijser. Of course, I did not master or become fluent in English during this year, but I did become reasonably comfortable. The worst resistance and my fear of making a fool of myself vanished. 

The goal for the 2019–2020 academic year differs somewhat from previous goals. This is because, starting this fall, I now work with Finish On Time. I am very pleased and grateful for this opportunity. This feels exciting, fun and stimulating as well as, obviously, a bit scary. My goal is thus to be comfortable in this new role and that, over time, I will be able to do this a few times each semester without adding too much stress. In other words, more or less the way I have learned how to manage seminars, conference presentations, teaching and public lectures. A few years ago, I could go on and on for weeks preparing for these things. Now, it’s just something I do. That’s why it also feels like this is the right time to try something new. It is time for me to expand my comfort zone.

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Does reading matter?

This is a blog about academic writing, but perhaps it should also be a blog about academic reading? There is certainly no lack of incentives for academics to write. Anyone seeking to attain positions, research grants and a good reputation must write. There is no other way.  But do academics need to read? Or is it in practice sufficient to google, browse and generously use footnotes? Is there ever time to venture outside your own particular area? How does being well-read actually benefit you? 

I’ve been wrestling with these types of questions for a long time. In fact, reading is one of the things I value the most in my work. Writing is rarely as exciting as being immersed in a well-written and illuminating text. Nevertheless, just like many other academics, I feel that I have less and less time to read. When I was a PhD student, I could spend months reading up on new fields of research. I remember reading Paul Boyer’s By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (1985/1994). I highlighted things on almost every page. Reading this book must have taken me a week or two. But what a reading experience! The things I learned! How inspired I was! 

I still prefer reading books and articles in their entirety. When I read for work, I use a pen. I underline and mark things to be able to return to the text. But these days, I relatively rarely read academic texts on what I am researching just for pleasure. This is perhaps a result of having been working on my current project for more than five years. It would require something quite extraordinary for me to have a mind-altering experience by reading about the breakthrough of environmental issues. That is why I prefer to read a bit farther away. My reading is also more based on individuals rather than subjects. I’d rather read what academics X and Y write, regardless of what they write about, than research in areas Q and Z, regardless of writer. 

In my experience, academics who have made an impression on me tend to be interesting regardless of subject. They are able to problematize phenomena and make me look upon things in a different light. They make me discover something I didn’t know I wanted to know. In addition, craftsmanship (i.e., how a skilled academic creates a text, presents a line of reasoning or uses language) can be just as interesting to follow as the actual content. Outstanding academic texts are also always included in larger intellectual contexts. They get better by relating to, building upon and challenging other texts and ideas. As a result, such texts turn into portals to lots of other rewarding reads. 

But how do you get the time to read? Can non-instrumental reading really be combined with writing, teaching, administrative tasks and children who need to be dropped off and picked up? Yes, I think so. In fact, I believe that it’s necessary to make room for “broad reading,” to refer to Ylva Hasselberg (whose new collection of essays Inte utan visst motstånd: Essäer om akademisk kapitalism och akademisk nyliberalism I highly recommend). In the short term, this reading may not matter for your career. A published article is undoubtedly more important than having read a couple of books. However, the long-term effects of reading in terms of intellectual growth should not be underestimated. Nor its social effects. There are few things as rewarding as conversing with great readers. 

But when should you engage in broad reading? And where? Myself, I do so in particular when on work trips. I sometimes also do so at night, after the children have gone to bed. In the last six months, I have also tried to replace my morning surfing routine with a little bit of book reading. A few years ago, when the kids required constant supervision and woke up very early in the morning, this was not possible. But at the moment, it works out pretty well. In the office, however, I rarely read longer texts. Here, I prioritize the opportunity of having uninterrupted writing time, interacting with others and everything else that needs to be done. What’s your approach?

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Writing plan and timing

Academics constantly juggle various writing projects. Some are at the stage of ideas and drafts. Others are returned in the form of proofs. In order to manage the constant flow of projects, manuscripts and deadlines, it’s a good idea to have a long-term writing plan. This enables you to prioritize between different projects and allocate sufficient time to the most important ones. It also enables you to make informed decisions as to when something should be written.

I mainly structure my writing on the basis of semesters. This typically involves 6–7 different writing projects of varying scope. From reviews a couple of pages long to articles consisting of about 25 pages. When working on major projects, such as a second book, I break down my work into chapters. This makes it easier to plan and manage the project. I don’t know how long it takes to write a book. But I have a pretty good idea of how long it takes me to write a book chapter 20–25 pages long. 

My basic principle when writing a number of different projects is “the most important one first.” I use two criteria to determine this: 1) How important is this writing project for my long-term goals and ambitions? 2) When is the deadline? The challenge for most academics is to not forget the first question. Many of our most important projects – our books and applications – don’t have a set external deadline. Nor do they involve any social pressure. An unwritten book or application doesn’t affect anyone else but ourselves. Hence, it is easy to postpone these and focus on things that are more urgent but less important (such as replying to emails). Despite the fact that we all know that this behavior is self-destructive. Or at least career-destructive. 

So, when I drafted my writing plan for the fall before I went on vacation, I started by putting chapter 5 and chapter 6 at the top. I then noticed that November 15 was the deadline for an international revision of my article “Miljöhumaniora på 1960-talet? Birgitta Odéns miljöhistoriska initiativ och skissernas historiografi” originally published in the spring of 2019. This text is to be included in a forum section in History of Humanities and should then be 4,000 words (i.e., about 10 pages; the original version of the text is about 25 pages long). This brought a dilemma to the fore. The Odén article is less important than my book chapters but has a set external deadline. Since I like having margins, I would like to submit it by the end of October. This means that the text needs to be written some time during the first half of the fall. But when is the most convenient time? 

To decide, I used another planning technique that – to the best of my knowledge – doesn’t have a name. The point of this method is to, as far as possible, combine writing tasks with other tasks directly related to these. The aim is to make writing as simple and frictionless as possible. According to this principle, a thesis review should be written in direct relation to an examination. Not six months later. With regard to the Birgitta Odén text, I had known for a long time that I would be presenting my research on her at the major conference on environmental history known as ESEH in Tallinn, August 21–25. This was the only time during the entire fall semester that I knew for certain that I would focus on Odén. When I realized that, the answer to the question when was suddenly simple. The Odén article was to be written first – even though it was not the most important.

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Stopping

It’s immediately clear to everyone when the spring semester has come to an end. The corridors are emptied of colleagues. There are fewer people in the breakroom and there are no longer any students around. As for me, I still have three weeks left to work. But this is the last blog post of the semester. 

At this particular point during the year, I have a habit of evaluating the previous semester. My focus is not primarily on objectives and results. Rather, I try to get a sense of the feelings I’ve had throughout the semester. What has been the most enjoyable to do? What has been the greatest learning experience? What has given me energy – and what drained me of the same? 

The first thing I do is to simply take a blank sheet of paper and start writing what comes up in my head. Good as well as bad things. What I try to get on paper in particular is what I have fully engaged in. Which tasks actually make me forget about time and space? Which contexts and people inspire and stimulate me? However, it’s just as important to write down what’s been hard. Perhaps resulted in concerns and anxiety. All in all, such an unstructured piece of paper gives me an overview. It becomes a map over emotions. 

After having written such a piece of paper, it is time to start thinking. What of all this do I want to spend more time on? How should I go about this? What do I want to avoid or minimize? How do I do that? These are simple questions and a simple process. But if you take it seriously, it takes a fair amount of time. In my case, I need a couple of days. As a matter of fact, I have set aside the last week of the semester to evaluate and plan. In my experience, the latter is not meaningful unless you have done the former. It’s like groping in the dark. How can you plan for the future if you have no idea what you want it to look like? (Or don’t want it to look like!) 

In essence, my own spring semester has been fun and rewarding. I think it has a lot to do with this blog. Sure, at times, it has been scary writing about sensitive and personal things, but my blogging has always felt meaningful and important. Publish and be damned, as journalists say. The input from you readers has also strengthened my impression that there is actually a need for this blog. There are too many things we don’t discuss with one another. And far too much knowledge is tacit or silent. If this blog is able to make an ever so small contribution in this regard, I’ll be more than satisfied. 

In professional terms, the highlight of this semester was my debut as an external examiner. This occurred in April when Pär Wikman defended his thesis Kulturgeografin tar plats i välfärdsstaten. Preparing for this examination was incredibly enlightening. Carrying it out was exciting. This was the real deal. That is what I want the academy to be like. 

As for my own writing, it has progressed well overall. I have (soon) done what I set out to do at the beginning of the semester. A bit more than three chapters have been written, applications have been submitted and I have finished my review of Wikman’s thesis. In addition, Johan Östling and I have written a so-called position paper on the history of knowledge, which I hope will be widely discussed. 

But, as I have hinted in previous posts, there was a downside to this semester. My schedule has at times felt tight. The room for things going sideways and for having spontaneous ideas has been limited. Things have worked themselves out, but I want greater margins in my life. Because if there is one thing I have learned in recent years, it’s that things will happen. You just don’t know what and when. A sustainable plan must take this into account. Without a generous buffer, the fun aspects will not be as fun. In a worstcase scenario, they will just be difficult. And in such a case, something is wrong. 

What I’m trying to say here is thus that I should schedule more time for my book writing. I haven’t finished my detailed planning for the fall, but I will probably aim to write two chapters instead of four. If I do this, there is plenty of time for the other writing and work tasks I have already planned. In practice, furthermore, it doesn’t matter whether the last two chapters are written next spring. It requires a bit of planning in terms of when I use certain funds for certain projects. But that is certainly something that can be worked out. 

The alternative would have been to cut down on various commitments or write a shorter book. Neither feels right. The things I have agreed to do are things I want to do and look forward to. And as far as the length of the book is concerned, all the chapters I have planned are important for the whole picture. They serve unique functions and dropping one or two of these would result in a different book. This would not necessarily be a bad thing, and if the circumstances had been more pressing, I could have made compromises. But academics don’t write books all that frequently. For me, it will probably take another five years before I start thinking about doing it again. That’s why it feels important to stick to my vision. 

Finally, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for this semester. Having so many interested and encouraging readers has been a privilege. I hope that you’re not yet tired, because there is still a lot of blogging to be done. I’ll get back to work in September. Have a nice summer!

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