I urval från Stockholms universitets publikationsdatabas

• From Talent to Qualification: A Sociological and Methodological Discussion of Player Talent Identification

  2024. Henrik Fürst. Scandinavian Sport Studies Forum 15, 73-86

  Artikel

  This article proposes a reassessment of the concept of talent and offers tools for a conceptual and methodological shift in the study of talent identification in sports. Drawing on American pragmatism, specifically the pragmatic maxim, the article aims to clarify the concept of talent in talent identification that makes an athlete open for selection. The article organizes, presents, and discusses existing research on talent identification and highlights the need for a conceptual reevaluation. Instead of solely focusing on talent identification, the article suggests studying player qualifications through explicit and implicit tests, where the label “talent” is one outcome among several. The relevance of measurement, attachment, and judgment in this context of valuation is discussed. The article underscores the importance of considering the involved agents and the situational and historical context of these qualifications.

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• Continuing in a creative career: Claiming an artistic identity and aligning trajectories among early career novelists

  2023. Henrik Fürst. Poetics 100, 101818-101818

  Artikel

  Most artists who venture into an artistic career discontinue after their debut work. This article contributes to the understanding of early artistic career discontinuation and continuation by drawing on 53 mainly longitudinal interviews with early-career Swedish novelists. The article develops interactionist theories of careers and social worlds, and suggests that continuation of literary careers depends on realizing an artistic identity and the alignment of trajectories in life, thereby providing time for creative work to emerge. The alignments are arrangements of trajectories that work together, and aligning trajectories makes it possible to legitimize an artistic identity in relation to competing identity claims (and roles) from other trajectories in life. The legitimation creates normative acceptance of the writing identity and activity. The ease of claiming a literary writing identity depends on a person's author type, finances, engagements in work and family, and time management skills. The article proposes that creative career continuation is influenced by historical, situational and cultural availability, as well as the ability to claim an artistic identity and manage intermingling trajectories and priorities in life.

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• Resonant Reviews: Experiencing Accurate Readings and Indicators of Literary Accomplishment Among Reviewed Novelists

  2023. Henrik Fürst. Cultural Sociology

  Artikel

  Artists both desire and dread reviews of their work by media critics. This article draws upon 66 interviews with Swedish novelists in order to examine their experiences of being publicly reviewed. A ‘successful’ reception creates resonant experiences that can be examined on two levels. On the level of interpersonal responsiveness, the authors’ longing to be genuinely understood through the engagement of others with their work is occasionally reciprocated in the reviewer’s reading of their work, resulting in a profound sense of mutual understanding and resonance. In the second dimension, abstracted positioning of the success of the reception is done using indicators of the importance of their book in literary life. The sense of achievement and prestige of having published something important creates resonance and connectedness to the world of literature. The article suggests that artists, through the reception of their works, can be either resonantly or non-resonantly engaged with reviewers’ reading and the indications of their works’ importance.

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• The Value of Art Education: Cultural Engagements at the Swedish Folk High Schools

  2023. Henrik Fürst.

  Bok

  This book shows the continuing importance of art education. Art education attracts students who see multiple meanings and justifications for the worth of that education. Their engagement in art education is not limited to the uncertain prospects for jobs or routes into employment in the arts. Fürst and Nylander approach art education through a rich array of empirical examples derived from Swedish folk high school programs in music, visual arts, and creative writing. Based on an analytical framework of pragmatic sociology, the book allows the reader to understand the competences and critical capacities held by students and teachers. The book challenges the dominant public perception of art education and broadens our understanding of what it is good for. The Value of Art Education is essential reading for those defending the status of this vital sector of education, offering a deeper understanding of why people engage, what they gain, and the social importance of the arts.

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• Splendid isolation: Managing time and making culture among novelists during the pandemic

  2022. Henrik Fürst. Poetics, 101733-101733

  Artikel

  While many public performances of culture were shut down during much of the pandemic, the homes of many artists became prominent places for making culture. In particular, the pandemic created a rift in the temporal and spatial organization of work and leisure, affecting time management. This article turns to the creative lives of 32 novelists in Sweden who were interviewed online over video in 2020 and 2021. Using the example of these authors, the article investigates the impact of the pandemic on actors in culture who, to a large degree, already work creatively in physical isolation. The pandemic became an external shock affecting the temporal organization among authors and their ability to juggle commitments in life. For some, the pandemic situation appeared to create a rare slowdown of their relationships to their creative lives as well as a synchronization of spheres of life, feelings of resonance, and time for writing. As their regular activities disappeared and commitments weakened, others felt a non-resonant slowdown in their creative capacities. Those whose lives were intensified by new or additional work to make ends meet lost time for creative work, with writing becoming a guilty pleasure in response to the pandemic as a trauma. The research results emphasize the temporal conditions for making culture at home during the pandemic and argue for the general importance of studying temporal organizations of careers and art-making.

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• Arrival to a fictional total institution: The Swedish folk high school as a liminal space in literature

  2022. Henrik Fürst. Sociologisk forskning 59 (3), 321-340

  Artikel

  Arrivals have an unexplored significance as a phenomenon in sociology. This article studies depictions of arrivals to art education courses at Swedish folk high schools in fiction. These arrivals are liminal transitions between two states, warranting personal change, either being the solution to a previous problem or creating a problem (to be solved). Many spaces in society have lost their status as total institutions physically and symbolically detached from the rest of society. The rarity of and desire for totalizing milieus create possibilities for self-exploration and self-development in characters, enabling authenticity and revealing truths of social life. The depiction of the folk high school as a total institution of isolation and a liminal space for change is effective in (re-)producing cultural images of the folk high school and as a literary device to contain characters and develop conflicts that arise from the milieu. At the same time, these arrival stories demonstrate the importance of liminality in arrival and suggest that arrival be studied as a general phenomenon to uncover hidden facets of institutionalized social life.

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• The creative economy: Production, consumption, and temporality

  2023. Henrik Fürst, Patrik Aspers. International Handbook of Economic Sociology, 358-372

  Kapitel

  The creative economy is together with other economic domains, such as financial economy, natural resource economy, or labor economy, an obvious case of interest to economic sociologists, and a field to which economic sociologists have made contributions. It has grown to become an important part of the economy. The academic field covering the creative economy has grown, and the relevance and use of its theories and concepts go beyond its empirical boundaries. This chapter presents fundamental components of the creative economy, brings up the main research themes of this economy, and provides the key social science references for the field and its current debates. First, the central concepts of the cultural and creative economy are introduced. Second, we present research on artistic labor, focusing on artistic labor and commodity markets. Third, research on cultural consumption and the valuation of goods are discussed. Fourth, we conclude by discussing the temporal dimensions and transformations of the creative economy and its consequences for future research. The chapter ends by presenting some possible areas of future research.

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