Julia Nordblad

Biography

I work as associate professor (lektor) and specialize in the intellectual and political history of the current ecological crisis. I have taken special interest in the concept of biodiversity, and the temporal aspects of the climate crisis.

I am currently the PI of a project funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR) entitled “The Rainforest in Sweden: The Emergence of a Grassroots Concept of the Planetary, 1980–2000". The rainforest is today a well-known symbol of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. But the imagery of lush green spaces of global importance is a recent cultural phenomenon that emerged in the 1980s alongside the rise of international activism to preserve rainforests. The study historicizes the emergence of the popular notion of the rainforest through the case of Swedish rainforest activism and its network of partner organizations in the global north and south. The study contributes to our understanding of the history of planetary thought by examining how transnational social movements practiced planetary environmentalism.

In 2025 I completed a project funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond on the history of ecological economics as political thought, 1980–2000.

I earned my PhD in Intellectual History from the Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion, University of Gothenburg in April 2013 with a thesis entitled The Conditions of Equality: Demos, Empire and Pedagogy in Brittany, Tunisia, Torne Valley and Lapland, 1880–1925

I have been a visiting fellow at Sciences Po, Paris (spring 2018), and at EHESS, Paris (spring 2015). I was a visiting scholar at the Department of French and Romance Philology, Columbia University, NYC in 2009/2010. I spent the fall semester 2023 as a guest researcher at Center for Applied Ecological Thinking (CApE), University of Copenhagen.

I currently serve as the coordinator of the national doctoral school in the history of political thought, funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Research interests

I have a broad interest in environmental intellectual history and have worked specifically on environmental themes in the the history of economic thought seen as part of a broader political intellectual history. I often deploy perspectives from conceptual history, a field in which political concepts are seen both as arenas for conflict and conveyors of tradition. I have focused specifically environmental concepts, such as the concepts of 'rainforest', 'biodiversity', 'ecosystem services', and 'future generations'. I also take an interest in political temporalities, longtermism in political thought and rhetoric, and political conceptions of the future in environmental debates in since the 1970s. I have also worked on the history of political concepts such as 'representation' and 'general interest', especially in French forestry debate in the first half of the 19th century.

Awards

2017 Kurt Aspelin Foundation Grant (Stipendiet ur Kurt Aspelins minnesfond)

2014 Clio Award (Cliopriset)

2013 Övralid Foundation Kate Bang Award (Stiftelsen Övralids pris till Kate Bangs minne)

2013 Per Nyström Award (Per Nyströms vetenskapspris)

Media

Sumpcypressens ögonblick gör människan gåtfull

Radio essay on Swedish national radio.

https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/sumpcypressens-ogonblick-gor-manniskan-gatfull

Om klimatet och ekoideologierna

Panelist in programme on the history of environmental political thought, Swedish national radio.

https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/politiska-rummet-om-miljon-och-klimatet