At LUCK there is a significant interest in knowledge in postwar society. We have for several years explored the circulation of knowledge in the 1960s and 1970s, not least in relation to the humanities in the public sphere and so-called ecological turn.

Recently our interest has shifted to the last two decades of the 20th century and the formation of “the knowledge society” as a new self-understanding and societal order in a post-industrial world.

In several ongoing projects, we analyze the manifestations of this knowledge society and how its emergence was linked to changes in education, research, media, technology, economics and politics. See, for instance, the presentation of the project “The Europeanisation of the Universities: Transforming Knowledge Institutions from within, c. 1985–2010”.

Coordinator at LUCK: Johan Östling

Suggested reading:

Larsson Heidenblad, David (2021). The environmental turn in postwar Sweden: A new history of knowledge. Lund: Lund University Press

Östling, Johan, Olsen, Niklas & Larsson Heidenblad, David (eds.) (2020). Histories of knowledge in postwar Scandinavia: Actors, arenas, and aspirations. London: Routledge

Östling, Johan, Jansson, Anton & Svensson Stringberg, Ragni (eds.) (2023). Humaniora i välfärdssamhället: Kunskapshistorier om efterkrigstiden. Gothenburg: Makadam https://doi.org/10.22188/kriterium.49

Östling, Johan & David Larsson Heidenblad (2023). The history of knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009047715