The second book

Over the past years, I have shared offices with Cecilia Riving. She is a historian of psychiatry and – just like me – has small children at home. In the fall of 2016, we were both on parental leave and took the opportunity to take a walk with our strollers. The conversation came to revolve around the “second book” – the one following the thesis (in Sweden, PhD theses in history are published as books). Cecilia was in the process of writing her second book. I, on the other hand, was writing one peer-reviewed journal article at a time. I not only appreciated the shorter format but also argued in favor of it. First and foremost, I enjoyed finishing things and not having to retain vast and complicated thoughts in my head for a long period of time. At the same time, I understood Cecilia’s choice. Books enable you to explore large topics and to be more creative. Books may also be read by a wider audience. And, if you’re lucky, they may also be read for a really long time.

An observation made during our conversation concerned that it’s quite rare that female Swedish historians write – or rather publish – second books. This applies in particular to women with children under the age of ten. During our walk, we had trouble coming up with a single name. It also struck us that many of the most prominent young female historians had yet to write a second book. Things look different as far as men are concerned. For men, it seems possible to combine book-writing and child-rearing. The walk led to us to conclude that we – after our parental leave – should organize a seminar on the second book, its status and conditions. Questions we wanted to discuss included when a second book is in fact written. How is this done in practical terms? Who writes it? And under which forms of funding? 

The seminar ended up taking place in the early spring of 2017. We invited a panel of second book authors: Peter K. Andersson, Ulrika Holgersson and Johan Östling. The seminar was well-attended and offered informed comments and good discussions. One aspect raised concerned the systematic changes taking place in Swedish research funding after 2010. Up until this point, four-year research associate positions were regularly offered, which often resulted in second books qualifying the academic to apply for an associate professor position. The position of research associate was replaced by two-year postdoc positions and assistant professor positions (which have only been offered sparingly in the field of history). The most common approach, however, is that young academics fund their research by means of external funds, at best in the form of three-year projects from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, the Swedish Research Council or the like. These projects rarely result in monographs, but frequently in a number of journal articles and book chapters. If we add the dimensions related to gender and small children, the outcome is even clearer. 

When it came to me, the seminar led me to start thinking about launching this blog. I thought that a research blog could represent an interesting way of moving the discussion forward. Following this – to be honest – I’ve had considerable doubts. How can I write a second book when writing a blog at the same time? How does this affect my writing time and priorities? However, I’ve concluded that these issues would also be exciting to discuss in the form of a blog. The fact of the matter is that balancing different writing projects – applications, journal articles, book reviews, monographs, editing and essays – is unavoidable for an active academic. But how is this done? And how do you learn how to do it? Which kinds of paths are available, good or bad? These are issues I intend to return to in the future.

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