Patric Klagsbrun Lebenswerd
About me
My research explores the shifting relationships between linguistic practices and Jewish identity in Swedish society, from the founding of the first Jewish community in the late eighteenth century to the present. Drawing on perspectives from linguistic anthropology, it focuses on the historical formation and circulation of language ideologies and metadiscursive practices that have shaped large-scale sociolinguistic transformations. These developments are situated within broader socio-historical contexts, including processes of marginalization, integration, and nationalization; with particular attention to the varied responses to political emancipation in the nineteenth century and to the post-Holocaust period.
Teaching
- Sociolingvistiska och sociopolitiska perspektiv på flerspråkighet (Sociolinguistic and socio-political perspectives on multilingualism), Undergraduate course at Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University, Fall 2015, Spring 2016
Research
Our People's Language – The Fluctuating Linguistic Market of a National(ized) Minority in Sweden
My research explores three transformative periods in the history of Swedish Jewry—the struggle for civil and political rights ('emancipation'), the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel— and their respective sociolinguistic impacts on linguistic practices among Jews in Sweden. Empirically, I primely focus on the historical formation and institutional dissemination of the linguistic ideologies and metadiscursive activities informing, shaping and transforming not only the very linguistic practices, but also the ways in which Jews in Sweden identify with languages such as Hebrew, German, Swedish and Yiddish.
Publications
- Klagbrun Lebenswerd, P. J (2018) Jewish Swedish in Sweden. In Benjamin Hary & Sarah Bunin Benor (eds.) Languages in Jewish Communities, Past and Present. Berlin: De Gruyter Moutin. pp. 431-452
- Klagbrun Lebenswerd, P. J (2015) Jewish Swedish. In Lily Kahn & Aaron D. Rubin (eds.) Handbook of Jewish languages. Leiden: Brill. pp. 618–29
$presentationText