Bauer's History

 In my early twenties I wrote  my one year master thesis on swedish disability politics . During this work my advisor and suggested that I would look into Foucault, a persons whose philosophy I fell in love with. During the writing of my doctoral thesis I was heavily influenced by philosophers that were inspired by Foucault, such as Barbara Cruiskhank and Carol Lee Bacchi. However, I never set a side the time for re-reading Foucaults earlier work, but rather focused on his work on governmentality and other philosophers such as Nicolas Rose.  Foucault and scotch - an excellent combination This autumn  I was hit by a moped whilst jogging and hospitalised for several days. Once I was out of the hospital I could not write, but I could read. Therefore I started re-reading Foucaults  The history of sexuality  and my favourite book of his,  The history of madness . This time my reading of Foucaults work however did not led to the same idol-worship as pre...

 One of my favourite american authors is Sinclair Lewis , who saw a surge in popularity after 2016 election of Donald Trump. The reason for a public interest in Lewis authorship was back then his book it can't happen here which dealt with the danger of a fascist take-over in the US by democratic means, something that was actually quite close due to Lindberghs popularity. A year ago I however read another novell of his, Kingsblood Royale which dealt with the question of race in the american 1930's. Sinclair Lewis - an early 20th century writer that  perhaps is more relevant today than ever before. The main character of Kingsblood Royale is Neil Kingsblood, a sucessfull middle-class american whom upon his father's request start to investigate his family ties. His father was a strong believer that the Kingsblood family were actually of royal descent in Europe but Neils research points in the direction that family had african american lineage. According to contemporary racial ...

During the last month or so swedish newspapers have been discussing how the right-wing populist party the Swedendemocrats have launched a platform where mosques would have to close down if they were proved to be places of islamic radicalization. Whilst this framing of muslims as a domestic threat have invoked condemenations from both socialist and liberal parties, this is part of a trend which I have been worried about for the past ten years or so. Basically my worries have revolved around a fear not for the industrial style death camps of the 1940's but for a society were deep mistrust between different groups will increase repressions of certain groups, as well as an decreased social mobility in society. My main argument have for the past decade been that regardless of whetever or not a global society is wanted, it its a reality which both politicians, public officials and the academia will have to accept since it is already here.  What contemporary debate however tends to miss o...

While I was a student at Lund university's history department I came in contact with Joan Scotts famous text " Gender - a useful category in historical analysis " and had the priveligie of visiting one of her public lectures. Almost thirty years after the publication of this article, which launched the concept of gender in history, Scott claimed that here original headline was "Gender - a useful category in historical analysis?" and that her idea was rather to propose than make clear cut claims on the future of the history subject.  For a long time thinkers such as Scott, E.P Thompson and more Swedish examples such as Lars Olsson were important contributors to my own line of thought. If we added new categories to history writing we would get a writing of history that would largely differ from the old stories of great men with swords. This school is most often labelled social, workers or women history were one of the main aims is to rewrite history from previous ...

The philosophers have only  interpreted  the world, in various ways.  The point, however, is to  change  it. - Karl Marx Throughout the last semester I have time to reflect on why I am a historian and why I want to continue down this road. To me the answer always ends up the same: the past is relevant in order to create an understanding of how society could have been arranged another way. This is however not why I became an historian the first time.  After I graduated from highschool I wanted to become an engineer. However, my highschool education needed to be completed in order to get accepted and hence I got one year with nothing really to do. Therefore I started studying history at Lund University, as way to prepare myself for higher education and also learn something along the way. After the year was up, I started studying engineering but for different reasons I came to the conclusion that it was really for me. Therefore I started studying the bachelor ...