Bauer's History

(the title of this entry is a play with words, since the name "Hinke" carries resemblance to the word hink in swedish which means bucket).  For the past months I have been working on a project on Swedish politician Henrik "Hinke" Bergegren, who is often forgotten in contemporary history writing. Bergegren was born in an upperclass family in Stockholm in the year of 1861 and early in his life came into contact with rising workers movement. Within the movement he soon gained prominence and was a key person in forming the social democratic party, which would shape Sweden upuntil this day. In the scholarship on Bergegren a key concern have been the framing of him as a political terrorist, where he on the party's congress spoke openly about using violence as a mean to achieve the workers goals. In 1908 he was excluded permantly from the social-democratic party, which often have been described as a result of his agitation for violence. However, historian Åsa Linderbor...

In 1970's Sweden a common joke went like this: why do the soviets always sleep in a bed made for three? Because Stalin is always with them. This joke can be seen as a construction of sexuality, were the normative way to have sex is a intercourse between two persons. For the past year I have thought alot about sexuality and none the least the construction of sexual deviance.  In history of sexuality Foucault develops a notion of sexuality as a social construct. Foucault does not deny that there exist a objective reality surrounding sex, but he however makes an important observation: the field known as sexuality is largely constructed by social norms. In this perspective people will always have intercourse, but sexuality only exists once it has been determined as a field. The creation of this field of sexuality is usually done to control people, were for instance the church during 16th century invoked harsh restrictions on sexuality. This was later underscored by the 19th century med...