David Karlander

David Karlander joined Uppsala University and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in 2023. He is currently assistant professor of Scandinavian Languages and Pro Futura Scientia XVII Fellow. His research focuses mainly on systems of linguistic thought.

David Karlander is a linguist interested in systems of linguistic thought. His current main research project is called Making Languages, Making Linguistics and explores the invention, uptake and use of constructed languages – Esperanto, Interlingua, Novial, Anglic – in twentieth century linguistics. It is funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond through a Pro Futura Scientia XVII Fellowship (2023–2028). Karlander has previously published on the intellectual history of the sociology of language, on European and Swedish minority language policy, on the linguistics and politics of Övdalsk, and on contemporary graffiti.

Karlander studied at Uppsala University (MPhil, 2011) and Stockholm University (PhD, 2017). He has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Hong Kong (2018–2021), a Marie Skłodowska Curie (MSCA) Junior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) at the University of Freiburg (2021–2022), and tenured assistant professor at Örebro University (2022–2023). Since the autumn of 2023, Karlander is assistant professor (tenure track) in the Department of Scandinavian Languages and a fellow of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS). In July 2024, he received his habilitation (docentur) in Scandinavian linguistics.