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October 2015

Böcker som har forändrat mitt liv – Konrad & Szelenyis Die Intelligenz auf dem Weg zur Klassenmacht

By Autobiography, in Swedish No Comments

Det är bara en handfull böcker som haft ett avgörande inflytande på mitt liv. IMG_1167Det här är en av dem. Den bidrog till att jag kunde lösriva mig från den vulgära marxism som jag hade tillägnat mig under ungdomsåren och hjälpte mig att få en mer nyanserad förståelse av det samtida klassamhället. Jag minns fortfarande, som om det var i går, när jag låg i sängen en tidig junimorgon 1979 och läste Konrad & Szelenyi med hjälp av ett tyskt-svensk lexikon och med koltrasten sjungande i bakgrunden. Fortfarande idag, nästan 40 år senare, tänker jag ibland på intelligentsian på väg till den universella makten när jag hör koltrasten sjunga.

Ursprungligen publicerad på Facebook den 26 oktober 2015 gav denna post upphov till en del kommentarer: Read More

Counter-factual autobiography

By Autobiography, in English No Comments

“Who has not played the great game of counter-factual autobiography?” (Simon Barnes, Ten Million Aliens, 2014)

What would my life have looked like if I hadn’t taken up a vacancy job at Roskilde University in 1973? And what if I had stayed in my first marriage? What would have become of me if I had remained in Sweden? A middle-level left-leaning bureaucrat in the environmental administration?

Should we take counter-factual autobiography seriously? Well, as methodological individualists suggest, history and society is made up by the actions of countless individuals. Thus counter-factual history — a respectable branch of history these days — could be said to have its foundations in counter-factual (auto)biography.

Any disagreements?

Also published on Facebook, 10 October 2015, this post generated several interesting comments:

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Money in the archive

By Autobiography, in English No Comments

4x500 kronorMy document archive is not only a source for long forgotten thoughts and events. It’s also turned out to be a source for unexpected wealth. When I opened a thin notebook titled ‘Notater 16/3 1976 – 3/4 1976’ I found these four bank notes from 1972. Unfortunately it happened only once.

This post was also published on Facebook (5 October 2015), generating a few comments

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