Tracing the international career of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights to Sweden via France,... more Tracing the international career of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights to Sweden via France, this article is a study in the translation of politics and the politics of translation. Specifically, it shows how the Swedish translator, physician and publisher Lorents Münter Philipson (1765-1851) reached for it in 1792 to add to domestic arguments against hereditary office, the purpose of which, the article argues, was to revive and legitimise a more indigenous but by now slumbering rights revolution. The article first outlines the reception of America in Sweden and the ways in which Sweden figured in American debates. It then provides a detailed analysis of the trial that ensued as a response to the Swedish translation of the Virginia Declaration. Having reconstructed the process of transmission and the trial, during which the translator was charged with attacking Sweden's monarchical constitution by means of 'wrongly' translating the term 'magistrate', the article places the translation of the declaration in political context. The contextual analysis shows that translating the declaration at this particular point in time makes most sense against the background of the events unfolding in revolutionary France, which the translator hoped would influence political developments in Sweden and which the authorities sought to suppress.
Throughout the history of ethnographic writing, Michel de Certeau remarks, visual images of peopl... more Throughout the history of ethnographic writing, Michel de Certeau remarks, visual images of people and their culture are like luminous “white pebbles in the dark forest of the text.” The images “fo...
This article argues that Thomas More's creative appropriation in Utopia (1516) of the New Wor... more This article argues that Thomas More's creative appropriation in Utopia (1516) of the New World narrative enabled him to sketch out a cosmopolitan civil science for the purpose of sparking sentiments for a new ethics. Placing More's classic in a wider and more detailed context the article shows that the book's protagonists' anthropological approach to civil scientific study in turn has three important characteristics, all of which set it apart from conventional social knowledge: it is (1) empirical or experiential, (2) comparative and (3) cosmopolitan. The article thus offers a new interpretation of the relationship between Utopia and the New World as one that stresses the value of social experimentation, an aspect that is elaborated by emphasizing the theme of social knowledge both in the many vernacular European editions of the work as well as in the account of Utopian social life.
Makt och representation i deliberativa processer: om den diskursiva demokratins möjligheter och p... more Makt och representation i deliberativa processer: om den diskursiva demokratins möjligheter och problem En av den moderna sociologins och demokratiteorins mest strävsamma begreppspar är Ferdinand Tönnies Gemeinschaft och Gesellschaft. Enligt Tönnies tes om europeisk modernisering och rationalisering sker en successiv förflyttning från den förra samhällsordningen, som baseras på "family and guild," till den senare, som baseras på "rationality and calculation." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology sammanfattar begreppen:
... Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, MA, 1991). 29 Publication angående S... more ... Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, MA, 1991). 29 Publication angående Sorgedrägts anläggande efter Högstsalig Hans Kongl. Maj:t. Stockholm af Kongl. Slotts-Cancelliet den 13 februari 1771 (1771). 30 Kungörelse, om Förbud, emot Swarta Klädens och ...
De flesta samhällsteorier innehåller någon slags uppfattning om den 'mänskliga naturen'. Vi kan e... more De flesta samhällsteorier innehåller någon slags uppfattning om den 'mänskliga naturen'. Vi kan exempelvis inte förstå Hobbes samhällsanalys om vi inte vet att han betraktade människor som förhållandevis självtillräckliga maskiner som utrustats med förnuftet som ett redskap för att kunna tillfredsställa sina böjelser (Campbell 1986:29). Hans samhällsteori består sedan av att han förtecknar dessa universella egoistiska böjelser och visar hur förnuftiga människor blir samhällsmedlemmar för att kunna överleva och tillfredsställa sina begär. Hobbes uppmärksammar förvisso den del av socialt liv som grundar sig på ömsesidig sympati, men menar att den kan bortses från i politisk teori.
This dissertation investigates how different social groups used history as a political instrument... more This dissertation investigates how different social groups used history as a political instrument in Sweden during the second half of the eighteenth century (1740-1792). More specifically, it analyzes how representations of the past were used to influence behavior, legitimize claims to power, mould opinion and forge collective identities. In addition to analyzing how historians conceived of the relationship between history writing and society, the study considers how three social groups or actors -commoners, nobles and the King - used history to advance claims to power during a time of intense social conflict. These questions are pursued within the context of competing efforts to describe society and social relationships and the ways in which they were reformulated in the emerging public sphere. Combining textual analysis and diffusion studies, the dissertation examines both the meaning and the transmission of texts. The empirical material consists of government documents, textbooks, history books, subscription lists, political pamphlets, journals and speeches. The study shows that history was commonly viewed as a branch of ethics and that its social benefits were related to the creation and maintenance of civil society. In the late 1760s and early 1770s, this function was complemented with a radical historical discourse that advanced anti-aristocratic opinions, introduced ideas of democratic traditions and helped shape a collective identity for commoners. The nobility's reactions to these efforts show that they were unable to adapt their approach to the past to the demands of a new political culture. A study of Gustavus III's official rhetoric shows that historical elements were mobilized to support the idea of a revolution in favor of restoring liberty and national traditions. On a more general level, this dissertation argues that there were numerous ways to understand society and that these were contingent on ideological considerations. By conducting a study of the social make-up of the subscribers to one of the period's most important history books the study shows that the emerging "middle class" constituted a core group of readers. Moreover, the language of history increasingly became the national language (Swedish). The media of history became more variegated, books became cheaper, and the audience played a more decisive role in publishing; all of which contributed to the formation of a new Swedish public sphere.
Tracing the international career of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights to Sweden via France,... more Tracing the international career of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights to Sweden via France, this article is a study in the translation of politics and the politics of translation. Specifically, it shows how the Swedish translator, physician and publisher Lorents Münter Philipson (1765-1851) reached for it in 1792 to add to domestic arguments against hereditary office, the purpose of which, the article argues, was to revive and legitimise a more indigenous but by now slumbering rights revolution. The article first outlines the reception of America in Sweden and the ways in which Sweden figured in American debates. It then provides a detailed analysis of the trial that ensued as a response to the Swedish translation of the Virginia Declaration. Having reconstructed the process of transmission and the trial, during which the translator was charged with attacking Sweden's monarchical constitution by means of 'wrongly' translating the term 'magistrate', the article places the translation of the declaration in political context. The contextual analysis shows that translating the declaration at this particular point in time makes most sense against the background of the events unfolding in revolutionary France, which the translator hoped would influence political developments in Sweden and which the authorities sought to suppress.
Tracing the international career of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights to Sweden via France,... more Tracing the international career of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights to Sweden via France, this article is a study in the translation of politics and the politics of translation. Specifically, it shows how the Swedish translator, physician and publisher Lorents Münter Philipson (1765-1851) reached for it in 1792 to add to domestic arguments against hereditary office, the purpose of which, the article argues, was to revive and legitimise a more indigenous but by now slumbering rights revolution. The article first outlines the reception of America in Sweden and the ways in which Sweden figured in American debates. It then provides a detailed analysis of the trial that ensued as a response to the Swedish translation of the Virginia Declaration. Having reconstructed the process of transmission and the trial, during which the translator was charged with attacking Sweden's monarchical constitution by means of 'wrongly' translating the term 'magistrate', the article places the translation of the declaration in political context. The contextual analysis shows that translating the declaration at this particular point in time makes most sense against the background of the events unfolding in revolutionary France, which the translator hoped would influence political developments in Sweden and which the authorities sought to suppress.
Throughout the history of ethnographic writing, Michel de Certeau remarks, visual images of peopl... more Throughout the history of ethnographic writing, Michel de Certeau remarks, visual images of people and their culture are like luminous “white pebbles in the dark forest of the text.” The images “fo...
This article argues that Thomas More's creative appropriation in Utopia (1516) of the New Wor... more This article argues that Thomas More's creative appropriation in Utopia (1516) of the New World narrative enabled him to sketch out a cosmopolitan civil science for the purpose of sparking sentiments for a new ethics. Placing More's classic in a wider and more detailed context the article shows that the book's protagonists' anthropological approach to civil scientific study in turn has three important characteristics, all of which set it apart from conventional social knowledge: it is (1) empirical or experiential, (2) comparative and (3) cosmopolitan. The article thus offers a new interpretation of the relationship between Utopia and the New World as one that stresses the value of social experimentation, an aspect that is elaborated by emphasizing the theme of social knowledge both in the many vernacular European editions of the work as well as in the account of Utopian social life.
Makt och representation i deliberativa processer: om den diskursiva demokratins möjligheter och p... more Makt och representation i deliberativa processer: om den diskursiva demokratins möjligheter och problem En av den moderna sociologins och demokratiteorins mest strävsamma begreppspar är Ferdinand Tönnies Gemeinschaft och Gesellschaft. Enligt Tönnies tes om europeisk modernisering och rationalisering sker en successiv förflyttning från den förra samhällsordningen, som baseras på "family and guild," till den senare, som baseras på "rationality and calculation." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology sammanfattar begreppen:
... Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, MA, 1991). 29 Publication angående S... more ... Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, MA, 1991). 29 Publication angående Sorgedrägts anläggande efter Högstsalig Hans Kongl. Maj:t. Stockholm af Kongl. Slotts-Cancelliet den 13 februari 1771 (1771). 30 Kungörelse, om Förbud, emot Swarta Klädens och ...
De flesta samhällsteorier innehåller någon slags uppfattning om den 'mänskliga naturen'. Vi kan e... more De flesta samhällsteorier innehåller någon slags uppfattning om den 'mänskliga naturen'. Vi kan exempelvis inte förstå Hobbes samhällsanalys om vi inte vet att han betraktade människor som förhållandevis självtillräckliga maskiner som utrustats med förnuftet som ett redskap för att kunna tillfredsställa sina böjelser (Campbell 1986:29). Hans samhällsteori består sedan av att han förtecknar dessa universella egoistiska böjelser och visar hur förnuftiga människor blir samhällsmedlemmar för att kunna överleva och tillfredsställa sina begär. Hobbes uppmärksammar förvisso den del av socialt liv som grundar sig på ömsesidig sympati, men menar att den kan bortses från i politisk teori.
This dissertation investigates how different social groups used history as a political instrument... more This dissertation investigates how different social groups used history as a political instrument in Sweden during the second half of the eighteenth century (1740-1792). More specifically, it analyzes how representations of the past were used to influence behavior, legitimize claims to power, mould opinion and forge collective identities. In addition to analyzing how historians conceived of the relationship between history writing and society, the study considers how three social groups or actors -commoners, nobles and the King - used history to advance claims to power during a time of intense social conflict. These questions are pursued within the context of competing efforts to describe society and social relationships and the ways in which they were reformulated in the emerging public sphere. Combining textual analysis and diffusion studies, the dissertation examines both the meaning and the transmission of texts. The empirical material consists of government documents, textbooks, history books, subscription lists, political pamphlets, journals and speeches. The study shows that history was commonly viewed as a branch of ethics and that its social benefits were related to the creation and maintenance of civil society. In the late 1760s and early 1770s, this function was complemented with a radical historical discourse that advanced anti-aristocratic opinions, introduced ideas of democratic traditions and helped shape a collective identity for commoners. The nobility's reactions to these efforts show that they were unable to adapt their approach to the past to the demands of a new political culture. A study of Gustavus III's official rhetoric shows that historical elements were mobilized to support the idea of a revolution in favor of restoring liberty and national traditions. On a more general level, this dissertation argues that there were numerous ways to understand society and that these were contingent on ideological considerations. By conducting a study of the social make-up of the subscribers to one of the period's most important history books the study shows that the emerging "middle class" constituted a core group of readers. Moreover, the language of history increasingly became the national language (Swedish). The media of history became more variegated, books became cheaper, and the audience played a more decisive role in publishing; all of which contributed to the formation of a new Swedish public sphere.
Tracing the international career of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights to Sweden via France,... more Tracing the international career of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights to Sweden via France, this article is a study in the translation of politics and the politics of translation. Specifically, it shows how the Swedish translator, physician and publisher Lorents Münter Philipson (1765-1851) reached for it in 1792 to add to domestic arguments against hereditary office, the purpose of which, the article argues, was to revive and legitimise a more indigenous but by now slumbering rights revolution. The article first outlines the reception of America in Sweden and the ways in which Sweden figured in American debates. It then provides a detailed analysis of the trial that ensued as a response to the Swedish translation of the Virginia Declaration. Having reconstructed the process of transmission and the trial, during which the translator was charged with attacking Sweden's monarchical constitution by means of 'wrongly' translating the term 'magistrate', the article places the translation of the declaration in political context. The contextual analysis shows that translating the declaration at this particular point in time makes most sense against the background of the events unfolding in revolutionary France, which the translator hoped would influence political developments in Sweden and which the authorities sought to suppress.
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Papers by Peter Hallberg