Vad händer när du träder fram i offentligheten och utger dig för att berätta sanningen om dig själv och ditt liv? Aldrig tidigare har vi så snabbt med hjälp av olika medier kunnat nå ut och skapa föreställningar om oss själva och reagera på vad andra skriver. Blondinbella säljer sitt boostade ego och Kissie provocerar, Per Olov Enquist tycks skydda sin integritet medan Ann Heberlein strävar efter att det sjuka jaget ska bli friskt. I Bodil Malmstens (b)loggböcker möter vi ett flyktigt jag anpassat efter ny och gammal medieteknik. Dokusåpor, bloggar, bekännelser och självbiografier är delar av en marknadsinriktad realitykultur som sätter jaget i centrum. I denna studie visas hur en nyliberal individualiseringsideologi får sitt genomslag i offentligheten och hur det inverkar på vår uppfattning om vad en västerländsk individ är och bör vara.

This study analyses autobiographical texts that have created a stir after 2000 and the response they aroused among critics and readers. The starting is the escalating intimisation and commercialisation of the public sphere and an ideology of individualisation in late modernity. Mediatised self-images of diverse types are generated by what are known as 'confessional practices'; processes of mediatisation influence these practices and the effects they may have. Stepping forth to tell the truth or bear witness is no innocent stance, and its consequences are revealed in this study.

Sajten Flashback undersöks; vilka nya skribentfunktione skapar sajten och hur de förhåller sig till medieutvecklingen i Sverige och förändrade roller för journalisten diskuteras.

En recension av Anna-Clara Törnqvists avhandling Likt ett brustet halleluja: trons och tvivlets tematik i Christine Falkenlands prosa. ISBN 978-91-7061-077-6 (inb) Göteborg: Makadam, 2010. Fakultetsopponent: Cristine Sarrimo.

In my research project, I have interviewed students and teachers on a two-year university study programme in creative writing about how they perceive their own work and their own roles as authors. With Habermas' theory of communicative action as my starting point, I have devised a theoretical model to explore the act of creative writing. This article discusses writers' work procedures in a communicative network of institutional and everyday practices, in the light of established notions of literature and authors. In my informants' references to their own writing, the metaphor of 'space' - specifically, how an 'inner' creative space interacts with an 'outer' public one - is crucial. This metaphor applies to several levels of communicative action: individual, institutional, public and textual. Owing to its limited length, this article comments solely on the individual and institutional levels.

Med utgångspunkt i Habermas syn på kommunikativt handlande och på begreppet livsvärld diskuteras hur studenter vid en universitetsförlagd författarutbilding förhåller sig till föreställningar om skrivande och till författarroller.

Habermas theory of communicative action is used as a starting point for discerning how students in a university based school of creative writing view their future role as professional writers and how they negotiate their social and gendered positions in the academic environment.

En presentation och diskussion av teoretiska och metodologiska utgångspunkter i projektet Författarens professionalisering utfört vid en akademisk författarutbildning i kreativt skrivande.

A theoretical discussion and presentation of a research project concerning creative writing practices in a school of creative writing.

In her ”true” stories Buried Alive and Asylum Granted Liza Marklund, Swedish journalist and crime writer, acts as a ghost writer for Maria Eriksson’s presumed life story of abuse, hiding and flight to the USA where she, according to Marklund’s novel, was granted asylum. In 2008 the journalist Monica Antonsson published Mia – The Truth About Buried Alive. In the book she questions the factual background of Buried Alive. Marklund argued that although some changes were made to make identification of the characters more difficult, the bulk of the story was factually correct. Antonsson’s book initiated a heated debate in webloggs in 2009. When faced with Antonsson’s critique, former fans of Marklund accused her of being a liar, protected by politicians as well as the so called media elite. In this article, the debate about Buried Alive and Marklund’s position as a popular and influential feminist, is analyzed as a manifestation of a mediatized logic consisting of the ongoing intimization, feminization and commercialization of the public sphere, which ultimately deprofessionalizes the traditional role of the writer as well as the journalist. The users of social media precipitate this development. It is argued that this intimization process is part of a desire for a new realism, elaborated in ”true stories” in both literature, film, reality shows and the art world. Buried Alive and Asylum Granted are a mixture of fact and fiction – faction – which has its roots in contemporary reality culture as well as tabloid journalism. When negotiating about truth and lies in these books, thus reconstructing a traditional discourse of accusation, the bloggers forced Marklund to defend herself. This shows that Marklund’s Buried Alive not only creates a naive emotive reader craving for the truth, but also a new ”fourth estate” public position for amateur users of social media.

Med utgångspunkt i ett fältarbete utfört vid en akademisk författarutbildning diskuters i denna artikel vilka metodologiska och teoretiska utmaningar som forskaren ställs inför när syftet är att utforska kreativa praktiker.

Based on results from a field work in a school of creative writing this article discusses the theoretical and methodological challenges related to the task of capturing creative practices.

How the Swedish author Verner von Heidenstam is negotiating and constructing different values such as economic, existential and nationalistic ones is discusses in this book chapter.

Hur författaren Verner von Heidenstam skildrar föreställningar om ekonomiskt, existentiellt och nationellt värde i romanen Folkungaträdet visas i denna artikel.