Studentens lyckliga dar
Om representationen av upsaliensiskt studentliv på 1860- och 1870-talen i memoarer
Student memoirsStudent lifeRepresentationUniversity novelNation buildingUppsala university 1860-1880
The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the representation of student life in Uppsala in the 1860s and 1870s in memoirs. This purpose is achieved by contextualising the memoirs in two different analyses. In the first, the representation of student life in the memoirs is compared to that in another literary genre, the university novel, and it is found that the two representational forms paint completely contradictory pictures, where in the novels the higher education is depicted as rotten and in dire need of reformation, whereas in the memoirs the system, albeit somewhat flawed, works. The memoirs and the novels thus seem to be competing systems of representation, created in different discourses, wherein the purpose and nature of higher education widely differed. In the second analysis, the examination of the memoirs is based on research concerning the nation building process in Sweden during the 19th century. The representation of student life in the memoirs fits well into this process, the stories of carnivals, of the drill of the special student militia and, especially, of the abundant student male choir singing, creates a picture of students as a defined societal group with a special political agenda. This place in society is idealized, the male choir singers are, for example, depicted as an avant-garde of national consciousness, and depicted as mainly harmonious