Hampus Östh Gustafsson
Researcher at Department of History of Science and Ideas
- Email:
- hampus.osthgustafsson[AT-sign]idehist.uu.se
- Visiting address:
- Engelska parken, Thunbergsvägen 3P
- Postal address:
- Box 629
751 26 UPPSALA
Short presentation
Researcher in History of Science and Ideas. In 2021, I defended my doctoral thesis on the legitimacy of the 20-century humanities in Swedish politics of knowledge. Since then, I have been engaged in a project on collegiality as a form of governance and the synchronization of temporalities in university politics c. 1850–1920.
Keywords: history of education history of humanities historiography history of knowledge politics of knowledge history of universities crisis democracy
PhD, History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University, 2021.
Reviews of my doctoral dissertation are available in History of Humanities and Nordic Journal of Educational History.
From 2023, I conduct the project "The Humanist Diaspora: Migration of Humanists and the Circulation of Knowledge in Swedish Society 1876–1926" at Lund University, funded by the Crafoord Foundation.
In 2023, I am also a researcher in the interdisciplinary group HEOS (Higher Education Organization Studies) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
Research Fellow, Vossius Center for the History of Humanities and Sciences, University of Amsterdam, 2022.
Visiting doctoral student, Faculty of English, University of Oxford, 2017.
MA, History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University, 2014.
Erasmus student, History, University of Manchester, 2011.
My research interests are focused on the history of universities, the societal value of the human sciences, and the modern politics of knowledge.
In my doctoral thesis, I examined how the humanities were legitimised in Swedish society during the 20th century, thus attempting to historicise the recurring notion of the so-called 'crisis in the humanities'. The thesis also sheds new light on the shifting relationship between the humanities and democracy, thereby bringing further nuances to the ongoing debates on the state and legitimacy of the humanities. Comparative studies on the history of humanities have emerged as an ambitious field of research in recent years. By avoiding a limited focus on individual humanistic disciplines, my thesis deepens our understanding of the role assigned to knowledge in modern politics.
In two new projects I examine: 1. examples of historical narratives of the humanities that were mobilized in times of crisis throughout the 20th century, with the American literary critic R. S. Crane as my prime example, and 2. the marginalization of Swedish philosophy of history in the early 20th century.
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