New book out!

A hobby project of mine has now resulted in a two-volume work published by Brill, in the series Library of the Written Word.

Title: Swedish Dissertations and their Subjects, 1600-1820: An Annotated Catalogue

From the publishers website: This book challenges earlier understandings of early modern dissertations as unimaginative academic exercises. It argues for their continuous importance in scholarly and scientific discourse, and describes the richness and diversity of their subjects and themes. The book contains a complete catalogue of the almost 20,000 Swedish dissertations defended in Uppsala, Lund and Åbo, 1600 to 1820. The catalogue includes longer comments and descriptions of a few thousand of these dissertations, and also gives an analysis of how different subjects have evolved over time.

Sweden's first dissertation in architecture

Architectura aedium sacrarum, presided over by Anders Riddermarck and defended on Feburary 5 in 1695 by Jonas Norck, is most probably Sweden’s first dissertation in architecture. More sepcifically, it deals with the architecture of sacred buildings. It brings up everything from the structure and materials of buidlings to architectural decorations and the five orders of classical columns.

Temporality, nationalism and the territorialisation of public space - Commemorational presences in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv

New article out in Political Geography here

Abstract: In this article, I investigate how material strategies of commemoration are part of the recategorisation of public space in a series of nationalistic projects in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. I look especially at the different ways in which these commemorative territories are made present, and the specific view of history that these presences entail. The studied cases include for example the transformation of a public square into a ‘memorial square’ (Rabin Square), of a religious space into a ‘space of national significance’ (Western Wall Plaza), and of part of an urban district into a ‘archaeological excavation’ and a ‘tourist theme park’ (City of David). In the article, I trace and conceptualise five temporal modalities (or temporal perspectives) and discuss their related material designs. Finally, I discuss how studying these modalities can be fertile for exploring how memorials play a part in producing and stabilising different kinds of nationalist affects and sentiments.

Western Wall, Jerusalem, 1905 (Source: Marinmuseet, Karlskrona)

Meeting places of the Univer-city: On serendipitous encounters in a growing university area

New article in Social Sciences & Humanities Open, written together with Fredrik Torisson.

Abstract: In this paper we investigate the ways in which a university, taking on the scale of a city of its own, affords meetings for researchers and teachers between disciplines. How does the continuous transformation and expansion of the university's physical environment affect the everyday lives and serendipitous encounters of the researchers active within it? The aim of the paper is to develop a conceptualization to facilitate discussions and analyses of urban transformations and its relation to serendipitous and informal meetings in urban areas. The paper takes Lund University as a case and uses different methods, such as time-geographical notations and Perec-inspired observations studies, to develop five different aspects that allow us to take measure of urban configurations and their potential for serendipitous meetings and encounters.

Territorial mimetics and room types: The spatial development of Swedish district courthouses 1970-2020

A not so new article, out in 2023:

ABSTRACT

In this article I investigate the spatial development of the Swedish district courthouse and its different room types from 1970 to 2020, with attention to its specificities and its commonalities with other building types. How have spatial form and use travel between building types during this period, and how has this contributed to the recent, quite radical developments and transformation of the courthouse as a building type? In the article, I especially focus on aspects relating the architectural and spatial culture of citation, and on what I here will call territorial mimetics. Based on a mixed-method approach, the study, traces and discusses five spatial themes of typological change within district courthouses, trends that also can be seen as a part of deeper spatial and mimetic tendencies circulating the Swedish society during these decades. In the conclusion, I then discuss the specific mimetic style of the courthouse as characterised by an ongoing negotiation between type-specific rules and cross-type models.