Postmodernismens sublima objekt : En fallstudie om postmodernistisk teori i svensk historiografi

The main aim of the thesis is, first, to present a theoretical and methodological perspective for the study of postmodern theory in historiography; second, to discuss and evaluate earlier research on the subject; and third, to show that historians must be more self-reflexive about their explicit as well as implicit theoretical and philosphical premises. My theoretical and methodological inspiration comes mainly from three directions: first, the discourse analytic theory propagated by the political theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe; second, concepts from Lacanian psychoanalysis as propagated by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek; and, finally, the later Ludwig Wittgensteins theory of language. Using this perspective a minor case study is made based on five dissertations in history at Lund University from 1999 to 2006 as source material. This in order to indicate a strong influence of postmodern theory in Swedish historiography. It is further argued that it is legitimate to speak of one postmodernism, not in spite, but because of the fact that postmodernism is a semantically highly paradoxical, contradictory and unstable phenomenon. The main results of the analysis can be summarized as follows: (i) earlier research on the subject is simplified and unreflected and must be abandoned, because (ii) postmodernism seen as a discursive whole, i.e. all propositions and/or qualities attributed to postmodernism display a highly incoherent, contradictory and paradoxical postmodernism, and this is so by necessity; (iii) almost every single individual postmodern, or considered postmodern by some scholar(s), historian displays in his/her text inconsequences, contradictions and paradoxes that undermine the very claims and/or critiques made by that historian, and this is so by necessity. The study is quantitatively insufficient and should be viewed as a first step in a larger study aimed at studying the influence of postmodern theory in historical dissertations/monographies from Sweden, Great Britain (and perhaps evens France and U.S.A.)