Martin Wiklund

Biography and/or project

I am an intellectual historian (history of ideas) interested in functions and uses of history, theory of history, the crisis of historicism, the role of the humanities in society, narratives of modernity and critique of modernity. After studies in philosophy, history and social sciences at Lund University and Aarhus University, I did a Ph.D. in history at Lund University. During this time I spent a year as a guest researcher at Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen visiting prof. Jörn Rüsen and later edited an anthology of Rüsen’s texts in Swedish. In my dissertation, ‘I det modernas landskap. Historisk orientering och kritiska berättelser om det moderna Sverige mellan 1960 och 1990’ (Symposion 2006), I analysed narratives of modernity and criticism of modernity in post war Sweden. During my post-doc period at Gothenburg University I worked on the project ‘History as a Tribunal’. In my second monograph with the same title, I analyse historical judgments of »68» in Sweden and use the analogy of the tribunal and a perspective of rhetorical argumenation to discuss how historical judgments can be justified, how such judgments function in public discourse and academic historiography and how the concept of justice can be made relevant for historical judgments and for coming to terms with the past. During this period I also co-coordinated a research network for the humanities in society. 2014 I received the title of Docent in Intellectual History (History of Ideas) at Gothenburg University. In my next research project (placed at Gothenburg University, financed by the Swedish Research Council), I worked on the use and abuse of historical lessons. During these years I taught on different levels and developed courses about e.g. the humanities in society, different forms of critique and criticism, use of history and therapy of conflictual histories, and general courses on Western intellectual history. In recent years I have been working on the crisis of historicism. Since 2017 I have been teaching intellectual history as an Assistent Professor at Stockholm University.