Person literary societies, but why? : What´s the point of taking part in the Book Fair? The author´s not there anymore.

The object of this master´s thesis is to investigate how the Swedish person literary society movement acts. The Swedish history contains the well-known popular movements with their 19:th century roots. Today, some of them have turned into factors of power. Does the literary society movement have the chance to take over as such en established popular movement? What is their entire aim? My hypothesis is that the person literary societies bring the literature forward through collective memory making. As a theoretical background, I studied research upon literary tourism and collective memory. Heroic worship and person adoration often have been considered naive from a scientific point of view. For my field survey, I interviewed members of societies associated with Ester Ringnér-Lundgren, Carl Johan Love Almqvist, Carl Michael Bellman, Birger Sjöberg and Per Anders Fogelström. I found out that the person literary society movement might be a factor of power in creating discourses from different aspects of their respective authors. The Bellman society aspires to change people´s opinions upon Bellman, while the other ones principally want to make their authors visible. The person literary societies exist in an intermediate position between the academic comparative literature and the biographical. Their other main tasks are publishing, socializing and being responsible for places related to their authors. Foucault´s notion heterotopia (a place between reality and utopia) is applicable to the experience of participating in a person literary society meeting, according to my investigation. The person literary societies also create and maintain les Lieux de Mémoire. According to Nora, this notion signifies turning points where history meets memory. From one of my informants, I perceived a tension between the traditional popular movement society and the computer age. The relationship towards social media and internet differs among the person literary societies in my study. A possible explanation might be the average age of thier members. The society of the youth novelist Ringnér-Lundgren measures an average age of 50, while the other ones mostly consist of people reaching their retirement age. The Fogelström society stands out in attracting immigrants and in working towards the public. Taking part in the Book and Library Fair is the most common collaboration between the societies and the ALM sector. This is a two years master´s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.