SVEN OLOV LINDHOLM AND THE LITERARY INSPIRATIONS OF SWEDISH FASCISM

Very little research has been done into the leader of the most prominent Swedish fascist party of the interwar period, the leader of the Nationalsocialistiska Arbetarepartiet, Sven Olov Lindholm, in spite of extensive source material in his personal archive. This article explores the literary influences on his politics, which Lindholm cited in his private documents and interviews, both contemporary and post-war. The immediate impact of notable Swedish writers, poets especially, such as Verner von Heidenstam, Viktor Rydberg, Esaias Tegnér, and Bertel Gripenberg, is demonstrated. These authors, largely of the Swedish Romantic tradition, are shown to be parts of one major Scandinavian cultural current in particular, namely Gothicism (göticism), manifested through a centuries-long interest in the Old Nordic heritage. In Sweden, the influence of new far-Right ideas that made their way into the country in the 1920s intersected with Gothicism in unique ways, which gave Swedish fascists a peculiar relationship to both fascism and their national heritage. Ultimately, these literary Gothicist influences allowed a particular naturalizing codification of Swedish fascism in the 1930s. Under the influence of, above all, contemporary Finno-Swedish health specialist Are Waerland, Lindholm is shown to have actively shaped Swedish fascism in line with his literary exemplars

“The Boys Are Coming to Town”: Youth, Armed Conflict and Urban Violence in Developing Countries

Young people are major participants in contemporary intra-state armed conflicts. Since the end of the Cold War there has been a trend to portray these as criminal violence for private (economic) ends, rather than politically or ideologically motivated. Hence, the perception of young people’s role has moved from “freedom fighters” to “violent criminals.” Our discursive and conceptual reconsideration based on a case study of Sierra Leone finds that the associated dichotomies (“new war/old war,” “greed/grievance,” “criminal/political violence”) are grounded in traditional modernization assumptions and/or constructed for policy purposes, rather than reflecting reality on the ground. Urban and rural youth violence in developing countries cannot be separated from its political roots. Moreover, the violent dynamics in which urban youth violence is embedded challenge our conceptions of what an armed conflict is. Including this form of violence in mainstream conflict theory would open the way for a new interpretation and more effective policy interventions. Extrapolating the experience of Latin American cities plagued by drug violence, the recent and significant increase in drug trafficking on the West African seaboard could mark the beginning of another armed conflict with high youth involvement, this time playing out in urban settings

Conceptions and Practices of International Fascism in Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, 1930–40

This article explores conceptions of fascism as an international phenomenon as understood by three political parties of the 1930s: Quisling’s Norwegian Nasjonal Samling (NS), Lindholm’s Swedish Nationalsocialistiska Arbetarepartiet (NSAP) and Mussert’s Dutch Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (NSB). In order to highlight fascist movements’ contributions to fascist internationalism, the article deploys both a comparative and transnational framework, showing up the national differences in their conceptions of international fascism, regional connections and influences, changes over time and the contingencies of transnational contact that affected the practical establishment of international relationships. It is shown that there was an impetus for international cooperation between fascist movements outside of the orbit of fascist regimes, typically sustained by regional affinities as existed among Northern countries and the Low Countries. While often framed by ambitious rhetoric, ultimately the three parties continued to focus on their own national projects rather than deepen international collaboration. Lastly the movements’ different myths of international fascism are compared, constructed for propagandistic ends, all of which broadly fit within the mould of a new European or even global era which saw the rise of fascism and the (hoped for) victory over ideological enemies such as communism and liberalism

Narratives of Decline in the Dutch National Socialist Movement, 1931-1945

Generic fascism scholarship, which has turned strongly towards cultural political history in recent years, has focused heavily on themes of rebirth in fascist culture, but rebirth's counterpart of decline remains under-researched. After emphasizing the existence of several distinct and even mutually exclusive ideological strands in the NSB, this article shows how ideological difference was marked by narratives of decline. But they were equally used to generate a coherent political message about the contemporary state of the Netherlands. Central to their functionality as a unifying tool was party newspaper Volk en Vaderland, which served to promote a patriotic, news-focused, and peculiarly Dutch narrative of decline that overarched ideological difference. Yet more than just tying ends together, one narrative in particular served as a crucial ideological constant in the Movement, namely the Leider Anton Mussert's narrative of decline since the early modern Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, which tied traditional liberal patriotic themes into fascist discourse. Where other historians have emphasized Mussert's lack of moral and ideological leadership, the article impresses how narratives of decline functioned as moral support, and rallied NSB loyalists throughout the German occupation of the Netherlands, until Mussert's own death

Myth and respectability in Swedish and Dutch fascism, 1931-40

The focus of this thesis is on the process of myth-making (mythopoeia) in the Dutch National Socialist Movement (NSB) and the Swedish National Socialist Workers’ Party (NSAP), using a cultural pragmatic approach to analyse the practicalities and implementation of mythopoeia comparatively. A variety of fascist performances, scripted and unscripted, are considered as having mythopoeic potential, and understood as performative in character, i.e. constituting the thing they claimed to represent. Multiple parts of this mythopoeic process are analysed: the resources, organisation, and technologies required to implement it, and the nature of the process, the events, performances, in other words the actual implementation, and reception by audiences. Secondly, it uses respectability as a means of seeing how in a national context this process was limited, inhibited, or otherwise defined by the standards of the public and media, to which fascists ultimately tried to appeal, thus providing an external perspective on fascist activities to contextualise them. The thesis is divided into four chapters, which deal with the party apparatus, leader myth, political uniforms, and the role of aesthetics and spectacle respectively. Together these chapters explore the relationship between mythopoeia and respectability as refracted through party organisation and administration, as embodied by the ‘charismatic’ fascist Leader, in the day-to-day behaviour and appearance of the rank-and-file, and ultimately the holistic experience of fascist aesthetics, i.e. the fully scripted and organised spectacles of party congresses. Ultimately it is shown that the fascist movements of Sweden and the Netherlands were highly innovative organisations. Mythopoeia had a powerful mobilising capacity, which could make up for the diminutive financial power and low membership figures of fascist parties. Finally it appears that the relationship between myth and respectability was not a straightforward dialectical one, but multivalent, and highly dynamic.N/

Clinical and histopathological characterization of paradoxical head and neck erythema in patients with atopic dermatitis treated with dupilumab: a case series

Dupilumab is the first biologic registered for the treatment of atopic dermatitis (AD). We report on seven patients with AD presenting with a paradoxical head and neck erythema that appeared 10–39 weeks after the start of dupilumab treatment. The patients presented with a relatively sharply demarcated, patchy erythema in the head and neck area that showed no or less scaling compared with their usual eczema. Only one patient experienced symptoms of itch and burning, although this was notably different from his pre-existent facial AD. Except for a notable ‘red face’, eczema on other body parts had greatly improved in six of the seven patients, with a mean numerical rating scale for treatment satisfaction of 9 out of 10 at the time of biopsy. Treatment of the erythema with topical and systemic drugs was unsuccessful. Despite the presence of this erythema, none of our patients discontinued dupilumab treatment. Lesional skin biopsies showed an increased number of ectatic capillaries, and a perivascular lymphohistiocytic infiltration in all patients. In addition, epidermal hyperplasia with elongation of the rete ridges was observed in four patients, resembling a psoriasiform dermatitis. Additional immunohistochemical stainings revealed increased numbers of plasma cells, histiocytes and T lymphocytes. Interestingly, spongiosis was largely absent in all biopsies. We report on patients with AD treated with dupilumab developing a paradoxical erythema in a head and neck distribution. Both clinically and histopathologically we found a heterogeneous response, which was most suggestive of a drug-induced skin reaction

Modeling Women's Elective Choices in Computing

Evidence-based strategies suggest ways to reduce the gender gap in computing. For example, elective classes are valuable in enabling students to choose in which directions to expand their computing knowledge in areas aligned with their interests. The availability of electives of interest may also make computing programs of study more meaningful to women. However, research on which elective computing topics are more appealing to women is often class or institution specific. In this study, we investigate differences in enrollment within undergraduate-level elective classes in computing to study differences between women and men. The study combined data from nine institutions from both Western Europe and North America and included 272 different classes with 49,710 student enrollments. These classes were encoded using ACM curriculum guidelines and combined with the enrollment data to build a hierarchical statistical model of factors affecting student choice. Our model shows which elective topics are less popular with all students (including fundamentals of programming languages and parallel and distributed computing), and which elective topics are more popular with women students (including mathematical and statistical foundations, human computer interaction and society, ethics, and professionalism). Understanding which classes appeal to different students can help departments gain insight of student choices and develop programs accordingly. Additionally, these choices can also help departments explore whether some students are less likely to choose certain classes than others, indicating potential barriers to participation in computing

Entrepreneurship education as human capital: implications for youth self-employment and conflict mitigation in sub-Saharan Africa

Previous research has focused on stable developed economies to predict that human capital and entrepreneurship education (EE) provision at the higher education (HE) level will positively affect entrepreneurial success. This article draws on the outcome of recent EE projects in two HE institutions in a conflict-torn northern Nigeria as a proxy to advocate the introduction of entrepreneurship as a compulsory component into the secondary school curriculum in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using semi-structured interview data, it is found that the provision of EE at secondary education level could help to facilitate human capital development and assist efforts to curb youth unemployment. Specifically, the study suggests that EE comprises both generic and specific human capital that increases an individual’s ability to identify and exploit opportunities, particularly for young people, and in doing so helps to reduce their vulnerability to poverty and involvement in armed conflict. Suggestions for future research and policy considerations are provided