Writing

Ola Larsmo and I wrote a book of 101 portraits of heroic individuals — 101 historiska hjältar.  Details here; the book is available from Bokus and other sellers.  It was published in late 2013 by Historiska media (Lund), with English and Korean editions being planned.

I served as the research director of the Raoul Wallenberg Calendar, a collection of 365 accounts of individuals who took great risks for human rights, peace and democracy. The work was published internationally in three languages and was serialized on Radio Sweden on each day of 2013.

I co-edited a book based on my Harvard University courses, Global Values 101: A Short Course (Beacon Press, 2006). My introductory chapter can be read here. The book is available from bookstores in Sweden and the USA, and a Korean translation was published in South Korea.

My Ph.D. dissertation explored ideas and practices of solidarity in Sweden.

My essay, “‘Ryck ut jacken!’ Andlighet som paus i livsstressen” (“‘Pull Out the Plug!’ Spirituality as a Pause from Pressured Living“) was published as part of the book Guds närmaste stad? En studie om religionernas betydelse i ett svenskt samhälle i början av 2000-talet (2008).  The English version is available here.

Per-Anders Forstorp and I wrote a book entitled George W. Reinfeldt: Konsten att göra en politisk extreme makeover (2006). It is available from the Karneval publishing house and from bookstores.

To listen to my Sommar i P1 program on Sveriges Radio, click on the links under “Audio” in the column to the left.

My Harvard courses were the subject of an essay I wrote for GU Journalen. Other writings available online include my article about Sweden in Countries and Their Cultures (MacMillan, 2001), an abstract of my Ph.D. dissertation (2000), and a debate article about American politics published in Svenska Dagbladet (2003).

Göteborgs-Posten published two of my essays: “Karl-Bertil kom lindrigt undan” and an earlier piece, “På drift allt längre åt höger.” Per-Anders Forstorp and I wrote an article for Aftonbladet, “Med nyspråk mot 2010.”

Here is my 15-minute talk at a 2013 TEDx event in Göteborg.  YouTube also has my conversation with Amy Goodman.

Göteborgs-Posten published my book review of Susanne Dodillet’s dissertation, Är sex arbete?, for which I served as examiner. In my own dissertation nine years ago, I celebrated Sweden’s policy on prostitution (criminalizing the buyer but not the seller) as contributing to the “ethos of a sheltering society.” I still think so. What Dodillet achieves is the anthropological endeavor of exoticizing the familiar and familiarizing the exotic, as she shows that the differing Swedish and German policies each make moral sense within particular cultural logics and as products of particular histories. (An interesting comparison can be made with Faye Ginsburg’s book, Contested Lives, which explores the symbolic worlds of activists on both sides of the abortion debate in the USA.) The review is here.

Earlier book reviews

Here are links to pieces about the George W. Reinfeldt book:

Expressen, Forstorp & Palmer

Aftonbladet, Åsa Linderborg

Göteborgs Posten, Lisa Ahlqvist

Flamman, Aron Etzler

Kristianstadsbladet, Lennart Hallengren

Dagens Nyheter, Lars Linder

Dala-demokraten, Sofie Wiklund

Karlskoga Kuriren, Peter Franke

Helsingborgs Dagblad, Johan Malmberg

Kungsholmens Folkblad

Botkyrka Tidning (page 11)

Per-Anders Forstorp’s web site