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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