"I still sing jazz for household needs"
Memory is a sieve, and a lot of it just slips away. But there are things that don't leave. A scent, a hit or maybe a quote. These are the bright spots that we want to focus on in this series of employee portraits. Next in line is Helen Asklund, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature.
When Helen Asklund was growing up, she was a horse girl. Or, she really wanted to be, but wasn't "tough" enough to continue riding. So she started reading horse books instead. Something she remembers with both joy and sadness.
" I was a little too scared in the stable and had a strict teacher of the old stock. It was also a harsh jargon and I felt that I didn't really belong. Of course, it was a great sadness when I couldn't continue," she says.
Through the horse books, Helen was still able to experience the exciting horse life and now, as an adult, she has dived deep into the horse book genre again, but this time as a literary scholar and researcher. Together with two other authors, she is now writing a book about horse book readers.
" We have interviewed about 50 people and many of them, like me, have felt scared in the stables and read books instead of living out their horse dreams. It's an exciting genre, which offers a lot of identification and lessons about social interaction," she says.
When Helen Asklund, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature and University Pedagogical Developer at Mid Sweden University, chooses things that have shaped and inspired her, she does not end up with a horse, but a musician, a writer, a grandmother, a philosopher and a journey.
Astrud Gilberto, musician
When I was younger, I devoted myself to classical music, both sang, played the flute, and my plan was that I would pursue a career as a musician. When I discovered the jazz and bossa nova musician Astrud Gilberto, she captivated me with her amazing voice and sense of rhythm and helped me to weave ga step out from the strict confines of classical music. She was so free to the music and did her own thing and that inspired me. Jazz demands more of you, that you put your own stamp on it. I didn't have a music career, but I still sing jazz for household needs.
Virginia Woolf, author
It was when I read Virginia Woolf that I really understood that I wanted to work with literature, so you could say that she steered me towards my career. The combination of fantastic craftsmanship, originality and an ability to shed light on important issues and thus touch the readers on different levels, she has mastered that and that is exactly what you want to achieve with art, I think. Her writing touches in a way that it has a significance for one's own life at the same time as it is an aesthetic experience. Virginia Woolf is a role model for me for her ability to write and her fight for women's issues, and her combination of strength and vulnerability.
My grandmother
My grandmother was 80 years old when I was born and had lived throughout the 20th century. She was active early on when the women's movement took off and even though she was so old, we had time to talk a lot before she died. Through our conversations, I learned to put my own life in a larger context. She has made me appreciate the work of previous generations for the rights that we take for granted today and that we need to actively protect so that they are not lost again.
The Renaissance of the Immeasurable, book
Jonna Bornemark, who is a philosopher, has put words to things that I have thought myself but have not been able to formulate and that are about all the stressful moments we have in everyday life. It has become a vicious circle where we think we have to do so much all the time, and we compare and measure ourselves against each other. After all, we even measure how many steps we take in a day. In the book, she discusses this eagerness to measurability, and by reading it, I have learned concepts that help me formulate my own view of life – such as presence in what I do, empathy and having my own judgement and clear morals. These are often the parts that are challenged today and that make it difficult to have time to stop, think and reflect on why you do things in a certain way, or even see each other. I think we need to be able to be in the moment and be grounded in ourselves without it always having to lead to some result.
Travel to India
When I was about 25 years old, I went to India to work as a volunteer. My conversations with Grandma had begun to help me put my life into perspective, and this trip helped to do that even more. It was challenging in many ways, partly because I stood out and was different, partly because I got to go home to families and see how they lived in absolute slums. It has influenced me a lot in terms of my ability to empathize and want to see others. Grandma had opened the door to it and it was reinforced with this trip.