Would it be good if the Nobel Prize for literature was not awarded this year?

After a quite eventful 2018, with many conflicts, he is now calm at the Swedish Academy. Is there any silence that signals the fall of the academy, or is it calm after the storm where the academy collects and comes back stronger?

Conflicts in the academy are not entirely clear. Whoever followed the Swedish and Norwegian media scene throughout the year received news on disagreements between those who want to modernize the academy and those who will keep the old one.

We also read surveys on university exclusion disputes over the use of financial resources, and on links with people accused of the Metoo movement.

Several of the most famous scholars have withdrawn from their positions. The names that were mentioned in the conflict are cultural personalities such as Sara Danius, Horace Engdahl, Peter Englund, Sara Stridsberg and Katarina Frostensson. According to the media report on the case, the role of the latter in the conflict was central

A conflict developing?

There have been conflicts and crises in the academy this year, but the conflict should not be negative. Conflicts in the academy contribute more dynamism and movement. Conflicts "moving around" in the academy contribute to the development of a cultural institution. An academy where things are happening is a healthy institution

Conflicts not only alter the academy from within, but can also help us renew our interest in the academy.

In fact, the academy is one of the most important literary institutions in the world. It's the academy that shares the Nobel Prize for Literature – the most prestigious literary prize in the world. It's probably a lot of people who did not think about it much earlier, since the work of the Academy has long been in a supposedly stable institution where academics work together in harmony.

The effects of a Nobel Prize are not worth

anything but harmony in the academy. The conflicts lead to the fact that there will be no Nobel Prize in literature this year.

This is, of course, a shame, but this probably places the academy in the limelight.

Do not share the Nobel Prize for Literature As I said, the years are the result of a conflict and that 's the conflict in the academy that attracts the. ;Warning. In Sweden, the Swedish Academy does not speak much in the language and context of the Nobel Prize, and in Norway the academy rarely ends up in the public light

This year, probably no ordinary literature person interested in Norway has received news about Swedish. Academy. In this case, I think it's true that any attention is good attention.

A struggle for positions

In a previous column on research, I described the literary world as a system of centers and peripherals. In literary sociological contexts, it is common to describe the world as a system in which genres or agents fight for the most central place in a system.

It is about fighting between those who want to keep their central values, and those who want to advance by innovating and defying the current values. The Swedish Academy is comparable to the literary system and its conflicts because some members are fighting for different positions.

No, this is probably not a sustained crisis for the academy. On the outside, the conflicts have made the world aware of the existence of the Academy and, internally, it is probably a constructive period in which l & # 39; The academy is changing and evolving.

At present, the Swedish Academy is calm. It does not matter. This is the constructive calm after the storm.