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Antoinette Hetzler

Antoinette Hetzler

Professor emerita

Antoinette Hetzler

Klas Östergren. Den intellektuelle som åskådare

Author

  • Antoinette Hetzler

Editor

  • Christofer Edling
  • Jens Rydgren

Summary, in English

The paper is an analysis of Klas Östergren's book, Gentlemen, from a sociological perspective.As a sociologist when I read Gentlemen, Östergren’s voice in the book rapidly became associated with Karl Manheim’s concept of the free-floating intelligentsia (Ideology and Utopia, 1954). Östergren uses the tension between distance and closeness, integrating different perspectives, to present himself as being able to be both a distant observer, the watchman describing events from the outside, and also the insider with access to the closeness necessary to feel empathy and understanding of particular events as lived experience. Yet the creation of a dialectic by Östergren in Gentlemen between subject and object, essence and appearance, particular and universal is done without a critical distance to just himself in the role he assigns himself as a ”free-floating intellectual.”

Department/s

  • Sociology

Publishing year

2015

Language

Swedish

Pages

323-330

Publication/Series

Sociologi genom litteratur - skönlitteraturens möjligheter och samhällsvetenskapens begränsningar

Document type

Book chapter

Publisher

Arkiv

Topic

  • Sociology

Keywords

  • Free-floating Intelligentsia
  • Karl Manheim
  • Critical Theory
  • truth

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 978-91-7924-270-1