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.

---------

Do you want to sign up for the blogs mailing-list? Send an e-mail to david.larsson_heidenblad@hist.lu.se