Stefan Jonsson is Professor of Ethnic Studies at REMESO. He received his Ph.D. from the Program in Literature at Duke University, USA, in 1997. Between 1998 and 2000 he was a fellow in residence at Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, and in 2006 Visiting Professor at University of Michigan. He has also been associate professor of aesthetics and research leader in cultural theory at S枚dert枚rn University, Sweden.
Together with professor Peo Hansen, Jonsson is working on a project about the colonial prehistory and legacy of the European Union; their widely acclaimed Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism was published in 2014 and was recently published in French translation (Editions La D茅couverte 2022).
He also conducts research on 鈥榯he category and fantasy of 鈥榯he masses鈥� and 鈥榯he people鈥� in European culture, which has resulted in A Brief History of the Masses: Three Revolutions (2008) and Crowds and Democracy: The Idea and Image of the Masses from Revolution to Fascism (2013) both from Columbia University Press. This line of research continues in new projects, one on 鈥榤onstrous events鈥� with a focus on collective political protest in 2011 and after, another one on the ways in which art and literature help us understand democracy, politics, migration and other collective phenomena, and a third one 鈥� in artistic research together with visual artist Anna 脜dahl 鈥� on visual representations and computational simulations of collective agency. He is also involved in a European project on the consequences of digital infrastructure for our imagination of nation, belonging and boundaries.
Stefan has written extensively on racism, multiculturalism, identity politics, postcolonial culture, and globalization. He frequently appears in Dagens Nyheter and other major Swedish media as cultural critic and commentator.
Co-authored with Sven Lindqvist is his book on the documentary, and its approach to life and society as well as urgent issues such as democracy, racism and the legacies of colonialism: Sanningskonst: Samtal om ett f枚rfattarskap [The Art of Truth] (Bonniers 2018).
In D盲r historien tar slut: Makt , monster och motst氓nd i en delad v盲rld [Where History Ends: Power, Monsters and Resistance in a Divided World] (Norstedts 2020) he uses film, literature and art in order to capture the colonial relation between the different parts of a broken world. This book was awarded the Albert Bonniers Essay Award.
In 2022 Jonsson published Den otyglade sk枚nheten: 5 saker vet om demokratin [Beauty Unreined: 5 Things Art Knows About Democracy](Norstedts), a research essay on the importance of art and imagination in our efforts to realize equality, democracy and social justice.
听Stefan Jonsson is Head of Division of REMESO and teaches in the doctoral and master鈥檚 programmes in Ethnic and Migration studies.
