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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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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Model texts

Academic writing is not one thing but many. It consists of a plethora of genres and subgenres, from papers and written exams during the early years as a student to writing major program applications and expert opinions. Few, if any, master all these genres. Hence, active writers need to get the tools – and the self-confidence – to repeatedly do what they have not done before. 

My own way of managing this is to look for model texts. In other words, before I start writing in a genre with which I’m unfamiliar, I study what others have done. When reading these texts, however, I don’t focus on the contents. What I’m trying to achieve is to get an idea of how a specific type of text may be structured. What does a functioning skeleton look like? 

My experience is that this approach is more helpful the more specific you are. In other words, I mainly study subgenres. As far as journal articles are concerned, I commonly try to find a text about the same time period that uses a similar source material. The text should also originate from the journal to which I intend to submit my manuscript. This enables me to ensure that my text is not completely out of place in terms of genre and subject matter. 

A concrete example is my first peer-reviewed article “Framtidskunskap i cirkulation” (2015). It concerns how questions related to the environment and the future were discussed in the Swedish press and radio/television in the early 1970s. My model text for this was Marie Cronqvist’s article “Utrymning i folkhemmet” (2008) on Swedish civil defense culture in the early 1960s. What these two articles have in common is that they seek to shed light on a larger theme by looking at a more specific historical example. They concern very short periods of time and are mainly based on press material. 

My study of Marie’s text was carried out at the same time as I collected source material, read research literature and started prewriting. Assisted by the model text, I created a rough synopsis indicating the number of pages for the different parts of the article. This synopsis then guided my continued gathering of material, reading and processing. By having a model text upon which to base my work, I got a better understanding of what was expected of me. I could thus set limits on how much source material and previous research were meaningful for me to go through. This reading was thus a key and integral part of the research and writing process. 

This type of work can be done with both high and low intensity. During this semester, for instance, I have carefully studied successful applications to the Swedish Research Council, blog posts and external examiners’ thesis reviews. But the low-intensity part is just as important. This means that in my continuous reading of various texts, I make sure to remember the ones I find really good. At the time of reading, there is not always time to analyze why I find it so good or how the writer has succeeded in this. But collecting good model texts is always a good idea. They tend to become useful sooner or later.

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On the importance of a social and intellectual context

The best thing about finding a really good academic text is that reading it is just the beginning. This is because outstanding texts are not written in intellectual isolation – they are part of a larger conversation. Through reference lists and footnotes, windows open up toward new worlds. For those with time, curiosity and access to a good library system, you’re free to follow the tracks and see where you end up.

A recent example for me is Joli Jensen’s Write No Matter What (2017). This is without a doubt a book capable of holding its own. But it also leads to new places. Through Jensen, I discovered the fascinating anthology Working It Out (1977). This originates from the 1970s American women’s movement and consists of 23 personal stories about women’s lives and intellectual work. The contributors are writers, academics and artists in their thirties and forties. Most of them have children. Many find themselves in the shadow of a more successful husband or ex-husband.

This book is a product of its time. Not only in terms of content, but also in purely material terms. The pages in my interlibrary loan copy have turned yellow. There are no highlights or dog ears. When I google the contributors, most of them turn out to be dead. Many of them found great success in the 1980s and 1990s.

But even if the book is more than forty years old, it still feels topical and alive. The stories are straightforward, honest and full of compromises. Between the lines, we find the outlines of men living a different kind of life. Their academic careers, travels, interests and ambitions are not circumvented by obligations. They have time to think. They have time to let the days go by. They have time to worry and feel anxious. There are a lot of things they don’t have to do.

The chapter by Amélie Oksenberg Rorty is particularly interesting in this regard. It revolves around how academic couples develop and what is actually needed to write. She points out that a common pattern is that the man in the relationship receives an offer for a better position. The woman comes along. The joint plan is that she should complete her book or dissertation.

But her writing grinds to a halt. Even though she doesn’t teach. Even though she doesn’t have any administrative responsibilities. She is free. So, why is she unable to write? Doesn’t she have what it takes? The woman and the man begin to doubt her abilities.

Amélie Oksenberg Rorty believes that the obstacle here is losing a social and intellectual context. She points out that many men – once the semester is over or when they have been granted a semester on sabbatical – frequently also become paralyzed. Having time and a door you are willing to shut is not sufficient. Academic work requires social contexts. It requires colleagues, seminars, lunch conversations and coffee breaks.

But the young couple in the story comes to a different conclusion. Well, perhaps the woman is not as promising as the man after all. And isn’t it about time to start a family? This is followed by the real frustration. Because when the children arrive, there is neither time nor social context. The intellectual ambitions – which have yet to be given a chance to blossom – face increasingly steeper obstacles. Simultaneously, the man’s career is taking off…

Amélie Oksenberg Rorty’s chapter was originally written in 1969 as a lecture. It was published in The Yale Review in 1971. At the time, she was married to philosopher Richard Rorty. They got divorced in 1972.

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Ventilation file

I’m an avid reader of books about academic work and writing. That is why I will from time to time publish blog posts recommending books in this genre that I have found particularly interesting. For me, this is a reason as good as any to return to classics such as Robert Boice’s Professors as Writers (1990) and Howard S. Becker’s Writing for Social Scientists (1986). However, I want to start by recommending a much more recent book: Joli Jensen’s Write No Matter What (2017). 

Just like most people writing in this genre, Jensen recommends turning academic writing into a daily habit. It’s a myth, she says, that academics need empty desks and vast amounts of time to make progress on their writing projects. Whether it concerns writing applications, articles or books, the key is having short, daily and stress-free writing sessions. But how do you actually achieve this? 

Jensen highlights three techniques. The first is that each project should have a dedicated project box. This is where plans, goals, drafts and finished text are collected. This box may be digital, but hers is physical. The second is to promise yourself to write fifteen minutes each day related to the project. Even a very busy scholar can free up this amount of time. The third is that each project box should include a “ventilation file.” This document is used on days when you neither want to nor are able to get yourself to write on the project. Instead, you spend your fifteen minutes on writing down why you can’t or don’t want to write today. After ventilating for fifteen minutes, you are free. The writing requirement is completed. 

A ventilation file serves different functions. First, it may play down your daily contact with the project. Because regardless of how miserable you feel – and perhaps in particular on these occasions – it’s perfectly doable to spend fifteen minutes of your day complaining in writing about why you don’t want to write. Second, such a document enables introspection and analysis. This is especially true for projects extending over long periods of time and where writing difficulties tend to reoccur every now and then. By reading through your ventilation file, you may discover patterns in terms of which feelings, thoughts and ideas make you reluctant to write. Does the project fail to live up to your expectations of yourself, language-wise and intellectually? Are you afraid of losing the respect of your colleagues? Does it feel like your project doesn’t contain a single new idea, but simply confirms what everyone already knows? 

My own experience is that almost all writing and research projects are surrounded by fears. This also applies to short texts such as blog posts and book reviews. What I have today – which I didn’t have a few years ago – are techniques for managing this feeling of unease. I’m unable to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, but I can nevertheless choose to write and carry out research. But when it comes to large projects – such as writing a second book – I’m less certain. To be honest, I don’t know whether, and in such a case how, I will deal with the negative feelings bound to manifest themselves sooner or later. 

What I’m going to try this year, however, is to use a ventilation file.

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