Texts that nobody reads : on Writing at Universities of the Arts. Report to the Department of Film and Media at Stockholm University of the Arts.

The purpose of this report is to propose various approaches and methods to create a better climate for writing and thinking together at the Department of Film and Media, and indeed at other departments of Stockholm University of the Arts. The goal is to reinforce thinking, reading, writing, and dialogue as part of an effort to construct an artistic research environment. The focus has been on studying writing at second cycle, given that this is the preparatory level for those considering a career in artistic research, which is of course a distinguishing feature of the university’s operations.My method involves long conversations with those responsible for writing and thinking at various universities of the arts, as well as with teachers, researchers, administrators and, perhaps most importantly, people who work with text: from poets, playwrights, and authors to theoreticians. The measures proposed in the report are applicable at a departmental level, university-wide, Stockholm-wide or nationally. It might also be worth identifying those physical locations in which teaching and research meet, or have opportunities to meet, at a university of the arts: libraries and laboratories. Here, I would like to refer to another text Labbtanken:12 röster om laboratorium och bibliotek [The Laboratory Concept: 12 voices on the laboratory and library] by Nils Claesson and Mirko Lempert1. Please feel free to read this report alongside Labbtanken