ABSTRACT
In the 1970s, the idea of a crisis of the humanities in Scandinavia started to circulate with new intensity. By perceiving the debates on, and mobilisation of, the humanities in these years as part of a long renegotiation of their intellectual as well as societal legitimacy, this chapter generates new perspectives on the role of knowledge in postwar Scandinavian society. The mobilisation of the humanities went hand in hand with a general critique of the postwar system of the welfare state, in many cases seen as an expression of unchecked capitalism, bureaucracy, or even technocracy. When a wave of critique hit societal institutions and consensus-seeking political practices in the 1970s, the affirmation of a critical outsider position seemed more attractive. While the humanities have often remained an institutional outsider in Scandinavian societies and treated as “an exception” in educational and research policy, the question remains open whether this marginalisation may truly be turned into an advantage.
