Writer's courage

The third chapter of the book is now starting to take shape. I have written ten pages and I have a clear idea as to what to write in the remaining pages. The first ten pages, however, were anything but easy to write. In fact, they turned out to require an unusual amount of courage. At the beginning of the writing process, I experienced feelings of doubt. Who was I to write this? Could I present support for my interpretations? Were the arguments I wanted to highlight reasonable? 

To refresh your memory, chapter 3 concerns the prehistory of the major breakthrough of environmental issues in Sweden in the fall of 1967. The chapter begins in the late 1940s. At this time, a new understanding was established with regard to how humanity, nature, the world and the future related to each other. The very term environment was given a new meaning. Previously, this term had designated external circumstances affecting people. Now, on the may other hand, it started to be used to indicate how human activities were transforming the world. Humankind was seen as a force of nature and as a danger to itself. 

How this change in terms of the history of ideas, concepts and science transpired and its consequences are the focus of Paul Warde, Libby Robin and Sverker Sörlin’s The Environment: A History of the Idea (2018). This book was published last fall but emerged over a long period of time. Parts have been published in the form of journal articles and book chapters that have been very important to me. They have shaped the way I approach my subject. These three authors are among the most prominent academics globally in my field. It should here be added that not only Sverker Sörlin but also Paul Warde read Swedish. 

It is difficult to write about – and hopefully also for – people whose research and ideas you greatly respect. For me, it initially had a paralyzing effect. I was unable to jot down any words at all. My writing units resulted in absolutely zilch. I was, however, able to talk about what I wanted to write. Basically an entire working day was spent on discussing my thoughts with some of my colleagues: Martin Ericsson, Malin Arvidsson, Lars Edgren, Svante Norrhem. Nevertheless, I was unable to write anything. The breakthrough only came at night when I talked the whole thing through with my wife. She asked the right questions, listened to what I said, confirmed and challenged my ideas. The next day, I completed four units and when I was done, I had a couple of pages of text. 

This approach is not altogether uncommon for me. Many academics think by writing. So do I to some extent. But above all, I think by engaging in conversations. That is where I try out and develop my ideas. I suspect that this may be quite tiring for the people around me. In my defense, however, I also truly enjoy discussing other people’s problems and ideas. Be that as it may, there is a time and place for everything. I’m not the best person in the world when it comes to sensing this. 

The relationship between conversations, free-roaming thoughts and actual writing is rarely discussed in the literature on academic writing. One exception, however, is sociologist Howard S. Becker’s classic Writing for Social Scientists (1986). Here, he describes how many of his books begin by him lecturing and talking to his students about different issues. In other words, Becker uses his teaching as part of the writing process. In fact, Writing for Social Scientists emerged from writing courses he organized for young academics. It even contains a chapter written by a previous participant. 

Becker’s book deserves a blog post of its own, but that will have to wait. The spring semester is about to end and there are not all that many posts left until the blog goes on vacation. During summers, you should obviously take time off and read entirely different things from what you read during semesters (or not read at all!). But then August comes around and thoughts about the fall start to enter your mind. Read or reread Writing for Social Scientists. You won’t regret it.

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Co-writing: Part 2

Academic writing requires courage. Not least when doing so in collaboration with others. An aspect of co-writing is that it involves another academic reading your texts in an unfinished – sometimes extremely raw – condition. There will be awkward sentences, unfinished thoughts, less than fluent English and incoherent text segments. The kind of stuff most academics wouldn’t want to show anyone. In this respect, most joint writing projects occur in constellations characterized by a great level of trust. The project undertaken by Isak Hammar and myself, which I wrote about in the first part of this series of blog posts, was one such constellation. 

The second co-writing project I want to discuss was of a slightly different nature. This was a collaboration with sustainability researcher Anna Kaijser. At the time, we didn’t know each other all that well. We had gotten to know each other during a PhD course in 2012 and had since interacted sporadically. In the spring of 2015, we ran into each other by chance at an informal lunch with Norwegian STS-scholar and environmental historian Kristin Asdal. 

During this lunch, we discovered that our postdoc ideas clearly had some things in common. Anna was interested in Scandinavian environmental youth organizations. I was interested in the emergence of modern environmentalism during the years around 1970. Anna suggested that we should write something together. Why not adopt a historical perspective on an environmental youth organization? Perhaps Nature and Youth Sweden (Fältbiologerna), which she had been involved in when she was young? 

To ensure that this idea would actually materialize, we decided to schedule a project day before the end of the semester. The plan was that we would discuss our ideas but also start to familiarize ourselves with a possible empirical material. We decided to order some twenty volumes of the magazine Fältbiologen from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. We booked a room at the University Library in Lund and started reading. We relatively quickly started to find interesting things. 

In particular, our attention was caught by the young activist Erik Isakson. He was all over the place in the material. In the 1960s, he climbed trees and led a series of adventurous expeditions. Toward the end of the decade, he became an editor and took an active part in the environmental debate. Then he vanished. A few years into the 1970s, he made a comeback. It turned out that he had accepted the consequences of his critique of civilization and moved to Greenland! 

Our plan was to study how Nature and Youth Sweden was affected by, and itself influenced, the Swedish ecological turn. Our hope was that Erik Isakson could serve as a common thread. That the larger process of change could be made visible through his life. After our day at the library, we scheduled a new meeting after the summer. The plan was that we would then draw up the guidelines for what our article might look like and where we should submit it. 

Our second project day was also carried out at the library. We then agreed upon a rough structure for the article and who should write what. The plan was to start in the present with the struggle in the Ojnare Forest on the island of Gotland going on at the time. Nature and Youth Sweden played a prominent role in this conflict. On the basis of this, we wanted to address questions on how environmental youth activism has developed historically. We also decided which texts to analyze in more detail and made copies of these. 

Some good things had also transpired between the two meetings. I had been given a two-year postdoc position in Lund and Anna the same kind of position in Linköping. Here, a large environmental humanities environment was taking shape. It came naturally for us to carry out our study within the framework of these two positions. That is why we didn’t find it necessary to apply for smaller project grants. We were ready to start working. At the same time, we had both planned quite a lot during the fall. As a result, the actual writing was postponed until the spring of 2016. We decided to focus on a historical journal and to write in English. We decided on Scandinavian Journal of History. 

Just like Isak Hammar, Anna had written her thesis in English. This made me feel more confident. It meant that my English could be straightened up by someone else. We also made it clear from the outset that we would adopt a more relaxed attitude vis-à-vis our text. Step one was to create an outline. Step two was to prepare a first draft. Only then had the time come to edit, tighten up the text and try to write more eloquently. This worked out well, not least as Anna had previous experiences of co-writing. 

Our text turned into a manuscript during the spring, but before we submitted it, we made sure that it was read by others. Here, we used our various networks to get perspectives from both the field of history as well as from environmental humanities. I was very pleased to travel to Linköping and present our text at their higher seminar. This was attended by senior academics such as Jonas Anshelm, Johan Hedrén and Björn-Ola Linnér. Academics whose texts I had carefully read but whom I had never met. 

After having incorporated comments from our readers, the time had come to submit our manuscript. Anna took care of this as I was about to go on parental leave. We got the text back in various stages and had to make quite a few changes. Among other things, the role of Erik Isakson was toned down and Ojnare Forest didn’t make it to the final version. We talked about our work on the phone, but Anna was responsible for the major revision efforts. I would once again like to stress the advantage of being two authors during the review process. It really makes it much easier not to take criticism personally and to come up with good solutions. 

Another stage where this form of dual authorship proved valuable concerned disseminating the text. I took Anna to the national history conference in Sundsvall and she invited me to the Science and Technology History days in Norrköping she was organizing. It was great presenting our research together and fun to better get to know each other’s acquaintances. 

By writing together, we became friends. Our joint project was never a major track for either of us. But it was a very meaningful, interesting and instructive project. The finished article, “Young Activists in Muddy Boots: Fältbiologerna and the Ecological Turn 1959–1974,” was finally published in the summer of 2018.

This is the second part in the blog-series "Co-writing". Read the first part here.

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First things first (synopsis part 2)

The second chapter of my book is one of the most important chapters. It is about the fall of 1967 – the point in time when I believe that the major breakthrough of environmental issues occurred in Sweden. Since this is one of my main points in the book, I have decided to put the chapter on the fall of 1967 immediately after the introduction. My aim is that even a reader quickly browsing through the book shouldn’t be able to miss this. 

For some, this chronological point may seem trivial and plain. I don’t think so. Ask someone when modern environmentalism took off and I can basically guarantee that if you receive an answer at all, it will be one of the following: 1) At the beginning of the 1960s when Rachel Carson published Silent Spring or 2) in the 1970s with the Green Wave. Perhaps someone will mention the photograph of Earth from space on Christmas Eve 1968, the celebration of Earth Day in 1970 or perhaps the Stockholm Conference in 1972. I would argue that all these answers – as far as Sweden is concerned – are wrong. The major breakthrough took place in the fall of 1967 and the most important actors were Swedish scientists addressing the public and warning of a global disaster. Chemist Hans Palmstierna was the most influential, but he was far from alone. 

It’s obviously possible to critically discuss my finding. Perhaps in five to ten years’ time, someone will be able to prove to me wrong. I don’t mind that. The purpose of my research is not to establish exactly what occurred once and for all. My ambition is to make a contribution, support it as well as I can and then see what happens. 

So, my book has been structured on the basis of the principle that what I find the most important result should come first. This means that I’m departing from a more conventional structure used in the field of history. That is to say, an introductory chapter, followed by a background chapter and then the actual study. 

I have instead chosen to put my most important empirical chapter before the background chapter. This means that the book does not have a linear chronological structure. Chapter two focuses on the fall of 1967. Chapter three starts off in the late 1940s and ends in the summer of 1967. The point of this structure is to shift the focus toward what I want my readers to take to heart. In other words: “DLH argues that the breakthrough occurred in the fall of 1967. Then, X, Y and Z took place. This differs from the previous time period due to A, B and C.” 

When I started working on my synopsis, I hadn’t yet arrived at this structure. At that time, I had a more conventional chronological structure in mind. I am sure that such a structure could also have worked out fine. But that would have resulted in my own research and results ending up in a more obscure location in the book. 

But the second book I’m writing is mine. It is based on the research I have performed and seeks to show what I have concluded. It will be my contribution and it is hardly my job to apologize for this. That is why I have chosen a structure placing my main point at center stage.

This is the second part in the synopsis-series. Read the first one here

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Co-writing: Part 1

One of the best learning experiences you can have as an academic is to write together with others. This is a good way of getting a concrete insight into how you may work and write in ways other than yours. I started co-writing in earnest in the spring of 2016. That semester, I was working on three simultaneous projects with three different colleagues: Isak Hammar, Anna Kaijser and Johan Östling. These projects came to cross-fertilize each other and ended up being a crash course for me on researching and writing together. In a three-part series of blog posts, I will thus discuss these collaborations and what I learned from them.

The first project was carried out together with Isak. We knew each other very well. Between 2008 and 2013, we were both PhD students. We took the same courses and shared offices. We then taught together and were even on parental leave at the same time. Our basic views of historical scholarship and our attitude toward the academy were similar, even though our empirical research interests differed.

Isak wrote his thesis on antiquity, while I focused on the period from 1600 up until the present. After receiving his PhD, Isak became interested in classical reception studies (i.e., how people have used and related to classical antiquity throughout history). I, on the other hand, studied the breakthrough of environmental issues in Sweden in the 1960s. There were no obvious shared interests between us. Sometimes, however, you discover unexpected things.

One of the actors I was interested in was diplomat Rolf Edberg, who published his environmental classic Spillran av ett moln back in 1966. This book is characterized by an ecologically holistic perspective that was uncommon at this time. When reading the book, I noticed that Edberg drew a significant number of parallels between the environmental crisis of his time and the fall of the classical civilizations. I pointed this out to Isak and had him read a few selected passages. After that, our project was up and running.

The first step in the writing process was to prepare a brief application for research funding. In relation to this, we acquainted ourselves with international journals focusing on so-called classical reception studies. Many of these were to a great extent characterized by literary studies, but in one of them – International Journal of the Classical Tradition – we found a couple of articles we could somewhat relate to. We wrote in the application that we were going to submit an article to this journal. After having waited for six months, we received a positive reply from the Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation.

But the step from writing applications to focused research time was steep. It took almost a year before we could both free up enough time. During this period, we both did totally different things. I remember that in the late fall, we started to worry about whether we could get something done. Did we really have enough material? Would any of the journals be interested?

Nevertheless, we finally decided to schedule a few weeks where we could fully focus on the project. We returned to our application and re-read Edberg’s book. Somewhere around this time, we realized that we had somehow already made quite a bit of progress. The application felt like a manual. We just had to do the things we had included there.

We brought different skillsets to the project. Isak wrote fluently in English, thus significantly improving the quality of the language used in my drafts. Obviously, he also wrote the section on classical reception. He also arranged for his American colleague Dustin W. Dixon to help us with a critical reading before we submitted the article. As far as I was concerned, I had experiences from peer-review processes and could easily place Rolf Edberg’s book in an environmental history context.

We arrived jointly at the structure of the article. We had meetings where we discussed what to write, which were then followed up by individual writing. We divided our empirical ideas between us. One thing I noticed during this process was that Isak – unlike me – wrote more organically. He could not say in advance exactly what he would arrive at. This was something he discovered during the actual writing. I, on the other hand, had clearer ideas in advance and my writing was not as creative. It was very informative to see these differences appear when working on the same material!

Our manuscript was completed during the spring, after which the review process followed. Here, being two authors was definitely advantageous. The comments we received proposed quite substantial changes. Among other things, a specific empirical section (which I had written) did not appeal to the reviewers at all. But the very fact that we were two authors made it easier not to take this personally. We discussed the comments, formulated a plan for how to respond and which changes to make. This included aspects such as entirely getting rid of the above-mentioned empirical section.

Our revised version was accepted, and in the summer of 2017, the article “A Classical Tragedy in the Making: Rolf Edberg’s Use of Antiquity and the Emergence of Environmentalism in Scandinavia” was published. Whether it has made any impact on the international scholarly community is unclear, but we were probably onto something. The fact is that when Gustaf Johansson presented his thesis in Uppsala in 2018, he showed with even greater clarity that many people in the 1970s made sense of the environmental crisis by turning to classical antiquity.

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What is the aim of this book? (synopsis part 1)

Following this week’s blog post, Linde Lindkvist asked me how I crafted my synopsis. It turned out that this question required a fairly long answer. In fact, even a two-part answer. My synopsis has in fact emerged over a number of years. There are embryos from 2016 and onwards. However, other commitments have emerged from time to time. I’m happy about that today. My thought and writing process has benefitted from this extra time.

The actual research process, however, has been long and winding. Starting in the fall of 2014, I have studied the breakthrough of environmental issues in various projects. I started with the intense Swedish debate on the future in the spring of 1972, after which I mainly focused on the emergence of environmental concern in the second half of the 1960s, in particular the fall of 1967. This, I would argue, is when the major breakthrough occurred in Swedish society. This is also one of the key points I want to make in my book. 

The bulk of my results are published in peer-reviewed journal articles. Quite a few people have read one or two of these. But I’m reasonably sure that only a handful of people have read them all. I probably know all these readers personally. This is obviously not optimal. If I want my most important findings to reach more people, then the journal article format won’t do. I need a monograph. 

During the course of the research process, I have thought a lot about whether to write in Swedish or English. In terms of my CV and career, the choice is simple. A monograph published by an international publishing house greatly increases your chances of getting permanent positions and receiving future research grants. In light of this, I read the book Thinking Like Your Editor (2003) in the spring of 2017 and started to prepare myself to write a book proposal. One of the things this book highlighted for me was a clearer audience focus. Who do I want to read my book and why? And what do I want the book to do to me? Who do I want to become? 

These are not questions with simple and obvious answers. As I see it, however, it’s important to carefully consider them before starting to craft a synopsis. Because a book is written to be read by others. It also does things – and not just to its readers. Books may result in academics being perceived, and treated, as experts. But in which areas do you want to be an expert? What do you want to do in such a role? And what do you want the finished book to result in? Do you want to continue doing research and writing in the same field? Or do you want to pursue a different path? 

The answers to these questions are key for crafting a synopsis. In addition, it’s obviously necessary to take into account what you can actually say something substantial and reasonably original about. The book must be based on your research, your knowledge and your ability. Otherwise, it will never be written. 

So, what do I want my book to do? Who do I want to read it? Well, first of all, I want the book to put an end to my research on the breakthrough of environmental issues. I have spent more than five years on this theme, and I am now ready to move on to new fields of research. There are 5–6 larger points I want to make. I want to offer these as a comprehensive contribution to the field of environmental history. My hope is that other academics will relate to and build upon these points. As far as I am concerned, I am – at least for the foreseeable future – done. I will have said what I can on this topic. 

Second, I want the book to illustrate the intellectual potential of the new history of knowledge. Simultaneously with my research on the breakthrough of environmental issues, I have tried to establish and develop this field together with a growing group of close colleagues. In my second book, I would like to give a concrete example of how a history of knowledge approach – with a focus on social circulation of knowledge – impacts how we write history. History of knowledge is not just a new name for things historians have done for a long time. Here, I want my second book to constitute a convincing case in point. 

Third, I believe that the topic of my book is not only current but also relevant to society, which, in turn, requires me to write for a wider audience than just my peers. Environmental and climate issues are no less topical today than they were in 1970. However, medium-term temporal perspectives are uncommon in the public and political debate. I find this problematic, as these are the intervals where lives are lived, decisions taken, systems built, policies made and changes occur. May we in fact learn from the historical experiences made during the last fifty years? Not impossible. 

These are the three things I want my book to achieve. The readers I address are thus both the scholarly community – especially environmental historians, historians of knowledge and post-war historians, but also academics in the environmental humanities. In addition, I write for a general public interested in societal issues and caring for the environment, some of whom have personal memories from the years I focus on.

For these reasons, I also write in Swedish. I think this gives me the best opportunity to be read and understood by both of these groups. Eventually, however, I still hope that the book will be translated into English so that it may be read by the international scholarly community. 

This post has already turned out to be quite long, which is why I end it here. In the next part of this series, I discuss how I proceeded from these more overall goals and ambitions to craft a synopsis.

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