The Swedish Academy Elects Final Member

Hello Gentle Reader

In March, Sara Danius the former Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy formally resigned from the Swedish Academy. A year prior, Sara Danius had stepped down as the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy and recused herself from seat, Chair No. 7, due to the Frostenson-Arnault Scandal. Over the course of the past few months, as other vacant seats were filled, Chair No. 7 had remained vacant. On Friday the Swedish Academy announced that it has elected a new member to fill Chair No. 7: the theoretical philosopher and professor: Åsa Wikforss.

With the election of Åsa Wikforss to Chair No. 7, the Swedish Academy will herald bring in the new decade with a full roster for the first time in thirty years.

As a philosopher and a professor, Åsa Wikforss main areas of study and research have been language, philosophy of consciousness, and knowledge theory including epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge). In two-thousand and seventeen, Professor Wikforss published a critical analysis titled: “Alternative Facts – On Knowledge and its Enemies,” where the author probes the strange and uncharted realms of ‘alternative facts,’ in the media and political usage, and how this notion that facts and information can be manipulated and interpreted to move facts and knowledge away from an objective certainty, to a more social subjective flotsam and jetsam notion. In it Åsa Wikforss discusses the philosophical theories and principles of knowledge, the philosophical perspective, as well as the biological components that make humans as a species unique in its ability to consume and disseminate information, facts, and knowledge from other species. It’s been praised as a relevant and striking analysis of the age of information, the rampant media saturation, and political manipulation of the notion of what information and knowledge is.

Beyond being a professor of theoretical philosophy and now a elected member of the Swedish Academy, Åsa Wikforss is also a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of the Sciences (the large institution which awards the science prizes), where she is a member of the Humanistic Sciences (or the Humanities).

The induction of Åsa Wikforss is considered unique for the Swedish Academy, whose membership conventionally concerns distinguished professionals such as: literary critics/theorists, linguists/translators, historians, writers (poets, playwrights, novelists), and philologists. Few philosophers and theologians are counted among the ranks. The most recent one of memory was the short stint of Jayne Svenungsson, a theology professor who sat on the academy for barely a year. Åsa Wikforss is therefore the most recent scholarly type included in the academy, and one who has a perspective beyond the typical notion of literature.

The induction of Åsa Wikforss is being praised as a powerful and striking choice; as she is a critical and clinical philosopher and scholar, not a writer, and not someone preoccupied with the sole realm of literature or language, but an individual who takes a broader unique perspective which should help with the Swedish Academy’s deliberations in future.

Åsa Wikforss will be formally inducted in the Swedish Academy during its General Meeting on December 20^th. The current roster for the Swedish Academy appears as the following:

Chair No. 1 – Justice Eric M. Runesson

Chair No. 2 – Bo Ralph

Chair No. 3 – Sture Allen

Chair No. 4 – Anders Olsson (pro-tempore Permanent Secretary, tenure complete June 1^st)

Chair No. 5 – Göran Malmqvist

Chair No. 6 – Tomas Riad

Chair No. 7 – Åsa Wikforss (formal induction December 20^th)

Chair No. 8 – Jesper Svenbro

Chair No. 9 – Ellen Mattson (formal induction December 20^th)

Chair No. 10 – Peter England

Chair No. 11 – Mats Malm (Permanent Secretary, after June 1^st)

Chair No. 12 – Per Wästberg

Chair No. 13 – Anne Swärd (formal induction December 20^th)

Chair No. 14 – Kristina Lugn

Chair No. 15 – Jila Mossaed

Chair No. 16 – Kjell Espmark

Chair No. 17 – Horace Engdahl

Chair No. 18 – Tua Forsström (formal induction December 20^th)

There you have it Gentle Reader, the Swedish Academy at its complete roster: twelve men and six women.

Congregations are in order for Åsa Wikforss. May she bring a unqiue perspective to the discussions and deliberations of the Swedish Academy.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary

For Further Reading—

Svenska Akademien: "Swedish Academy Elects New Member," 

Saarbruecker-Zeitung: "Swedish Academy is complete again,"