Anders Petersen
Biographic Data
| ID | 3583978 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anders Petersen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anders |
| FAMILY NAME | Petersen |
| SIGNATURE | PETERSEN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aalborg University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0931-5688 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
What Kind of Asceticism and Evolution
This article—a response to Johannes Bronkhorst's “Human Behaviors That Reduce Evolutionary Fitness”—focuses on his and the author's differing understandings of evolution and asceticism. The crux of the matter is the understanding of human evolution in terms of biology. While Bronkhorst's understanding builds on Ernst Mayr's and Julian Sorrell Huxley's “modern synthesis,” this article opts for an “evo-devo” perspective that regards culture as an i…
The achievement society: Youths too good for their own good
Interview with Andreas Reckwitz: A Society of Singularities
This interview addresses Andreas Reckwitz's main work, A Society of Singularities, but puts it in relation to his earlier and later writings. It starts with the strong and broad reception of this work in Germany. Next, it turns to how his understanding of the transformation of the social logics of modernity is related to other sociological understandings. In this way, the crucial distinctions of his work between the general and the particular, be…
Embodying the culture of achievement: Culture between illness and perfection is a ‘thin line’ – obtaining the ideal female body as an act of achievement
In this article, we argue that certain behaviour connected to the attempt to attain contemporary female body ideals in Denmark can be understood as an act of achievement and, thus, as an embodiment of the culture of achievement, as it is characterised in Præstationssamfundet, written by the Danish sociologist Anders Petersen (2016) Hans Reitzels Forlag . Arguing from cultural psychological and sociological standpoints, this article examines how t…
Hospice Care: Between Existential and Medical Hope
Medicalisation of hospice care has been discussed simultaneously with the development of palliative care into a medical speciality. However empirical knowledge of the role of medicalisation in hospice practice is underexplored. This paper considers hospice managers’ perspectives on hospice care in the complex between values related to hospice philosophy and a specialised medical approach to hospice care. Focus groups and small group interviews we…
But what are we doing to that baby?’ Attachment, psy-Speak and designed order in social work
In this paper, we will examine how attachment has become imperative psychological vocabulary in social work. In a case study of social work practice in one Danish municipality, the use of attachment theory shows that the social workers have undeveloped professional insights into attachment theory, yet still use the concept to help comprehend difficult cases. However, their frequent use of the concepts ‘attachment’ and even ‘detachment’ appears th…
The Return of Death in Times of Uncertainty—A Sketchy Diagnosis of Death in the Contemporary ‘Corona Crisis’
For most parts of human history, death was an integral part of life, something that prehistoric and premodern man had no other option than to live with as best as possible. According to historians, death was familiar and tamed, it was at the center of social and cultural life. With the coming of modern secular society, death was increasingly sequestrated and tabooed, moved to the outskirts of society, made invisible and forbidden. Death became a …
From silence to diagnosis: The entry of the mentally problematic employee into medical practice
The Presence of Grief: Research-Based Art and Arts-Based Research on Grief
The authors involved in the creation of this text collaborate on a research project called The Culture of Grief, which explores the current conditions and implications of grief. The authors mostly employ conventional forms of qualitative inquiry, but the present text represents an attempt to reach a level of understanding not easily obtained through conventional methods. The group of authors participated as members of the audience in an avant-gar…
Late Modern Subjectivity and its Discontents: Anxiety, Depression and Alzheimer’s Disease
Imaginative Methodologies in the Social Sciences: Creativity, Poetics and Rhetoric in Social Research
The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization
The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization explores the nature of contemporary malaises, diseases, illnesses and psychosomatic syndromes, examining the manner in which they are related to cultural pathologies of the social body. Multi-disciplinary in approach, the book is concerned with questions of how these conditions are not only manifest at the level of individual patients' bodies, but also how the social 'bodies politic' are related…
Introduction: Thematic Section on Social Pathologies of Contemporary Modernity
Neither the life [or the health] of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both. C. Wright Mills (1959) The Sociological ImaginationSocial pathology was
Omkring diagnosekulturen – depression som seismograf for samtiden
Denne artikel diskuterer, hvad der har muliggjort, at vi lever i en diagnosekultur. Diagnosekulturen er karakteriseret ved, at ikke alene fagpersoner (læger, psykologer, psykiatere osv.), men også lægmænd og den brede offentlighed mobiliserer psykiatriske diagnoser og kategorier som meningsgivende fortolkningsrammer for stort set alle former for lidelse og afvigelse. Spørgsmålet er, hvordan den logik har kunnet få samfundsmæssig fodfæste. I artik…
Open and Calm – A randomized controlled trial evaluating a public stress reduction program in Denmark
ClinicalTrials.gov.: NCT02140307. Registered May 14 2014
Autenticitet i kapitalismens nye ånd – manifestationen af et blidt barbari
Denne artikel diskuterer, hvilket substantielt indhold nutidens fordring om autentisk selvrealisering forbindes med. Præmissen for artiklen er, at autentisk selvrealisering er blevet så væsentlig en del af samtidens kulturelle opsætning, at dets eksekvering blandt vestlige individer opfattes som et krav og som det højeste princip i nutidens livsførelse. Det forhold synes at have en afsmittende effekt på samtidens politikførelse, økonomiperception…
The demand for flexibility as a process of disenfranchisement
The demand for employees to show flexibility is not merely a characteristic of large companies, but one that can even be traced in municipal day nurseries and kindergartens. In a series of focus group interviews with Danish kindergarten teachers, managers and staff representatives, it became clear that the idea of flexibility has been incorporated into society's most basic reproductive stages. In this article we show that this demand has proved d…
Authentic self-realization and depression
The central point of this article is that the burgeoning depression rates of our day may be understood in relation to the normative demand for self-realization with which contemporary western individuals are confronted. The article argues that the expectation of lasting fulfilment of authentic self-realization may be regarded as a chronic stress factor for the individual and risks creating depression. The modern view of depression supports this p…
Depression — A Social Pathology of Action
This article argues that the epidemic of depression is to be understood alongside the normative conditions of self-realisation associated with the emergence of the new spirit of capitalism. In the new spirit of capitalism, active realisation of the authentic self is an institutionalised demand, which is expected to be converted into praxis. This is interesting in relation to the phenomenon of depression, as it means that contemporary depression m…
Work and Recognition: Reviewing New Forms of Pathological Developments
The article deals with the relationship between work and recognition, taking Axel Honneth's social-philosophical theory of the struggle for recognition as its point of departure. In order to give sociological substance to Honneth's theory, we turn to three contemporary social theorists - Jean-Pierre Le Goff, Christophe Dejours and Emmanuel Renault. In spite of many differences, their work is united by a critical description of the logic of work a…
An Interview with Axel Honneth: The Role of Sociology in the Theory of Recognition
Authentic self-realization and depression
The central point of this article is that the burgeoning depression rates of our day may be understood in relation to the normative demand for self-realization with which contemporary western individuals are confronted. The article argues that the expectation of lasting fulfilment of authentic self-realization may be regarded as a chronic stress factor for the individual and risks creating depression. The modern view of depression supports this p…
Work and Recognition: Reviewing New Forms of Pathological Developments
The article deals with the relationship between work and recognition, taking Axel Honneth's social-philosophical theory of the struggle for recognition as its point of departure. In order to give sociological substance to Honneth's theory, we turn to three contemporary social theorists - Jean-Pierre Le Goff, Christophe Dejours and Emmanuel Renault. In spite of many differences, their work is united by a critical description of the logic of work a…
An Interview with Axel Honneth: The Role of Sociology in the Theory of Recognition
The Presence of Grief: Research-Based Art and Arts-Based Research on Grief
The authors involved in the creation of this text collaborate on a research project called The Culture of Grief, which explores the current conditions and implications of grief. The authors mostly employ conventional forms of qualitative inquiry, but the present text represents an attempt to reach a level of understanding not easily obtained through conventional methods. The group of authors participated as members of the audience in an avant-gar…
From silence to diagnosis: The entry of the mentally problematic employee into medical practice
Interview with Andreas Reckwitz: A Society of Singularities
This interview addresses Andreas Reckwitz's main work, A Society of Singularities, but puts it in relation to his earlier and later writings. It starts with the strong and broad reception of this work in Germany. Next, it turns to how his understanding of the transformation of the social logics of modernity is related to other sociological understandings. In this way, the crucial distinctions of his work between the general and the particular, be…
But what are we doing to that baby?’ Attachment, psy-Speak and designed order in social work
In this paper, we will examine how attachment has become imperative psychological vocabulary in social work. In a case study of social work practice in one Danish municipality, the use of attachment theory shows that the social workers have undeveloped professional insights into attachment theory, yet still use the concept to help comprehend difficult cases. However, their frequent use of the concepts ‘attachment’ and even ‘detachment’ appears th…
Introduction: Thematic Section on Social Pathologies of Contemporary Modernity
Neither the life [or the health] of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both. C. Wright Mills (1959) The Sociological ImaginationSocial pathology was
An Interview with Axel Honneth: The Role of Sociology in the Theory of Recognition
Work and Recognition: Reviewing New Forms of Pathological Developments
The article deals with the relationship between work and recognition, taking Axel Honneth's social-philosophical theory of the struggle for recognition as its point of departure. In order to give sociological substance to Honneth's theory, we turn to three contemporary social theorists - Jean-Pierre Le Goff, Christophe Dejours and Emmanuel Renault. In spite of many differences, their work is united by a critical description of the logic of work a…
Depression — A Social Pathology of Action
This article argues that the epidemic of depression is to be understood alongside the normative conditions of self-realisation associated with the emergence of the new spirit of capitalism. In the new spirit of capitalism, active realisation of the authentic self is an institutionalised demand, which is expected to be converted into praxis. This is interesting in relation to the phenomenon of depression, as it means that contemporary depression m…
Autenticitet i kapitalismens nye ånd – manifestationen af et blidt barbari
Denne artikel diskuterer, hvilket substantielt indhold nutidens fordring om autentisk selvrealisering forbindes med. Præmissen for artiklen er, at autentisk selvrealisering er blevet så væsentlig en del af samtidens kulturelle opsætning, at dets eksekvering blandt vestlige individer opfattes som et krav og som det højeste princip i nutidens livsførelse. Det forhold synes at have en afsmittende effekt på samtidens politikførelse, økonomiperception…
The demand for flexibility as a process of disenfranchisement
The demand for employees to show flexibility is not merely a characteristic of large companies, but one that can even be traced in municipal day nurseries and kindergartens. In a series of focus group interviews with Danish kindergarten teachers, managers and staff representatives, it became clear that the idea of flexibility has been incorporated into society's most basic reproductive stages. In this article we show that this demand has proved d…
Authentic self-realization and depression
The central point of this article is that the burgeoning depression rates of our day may be understood in relation to the normative demand for self-realization with which contemporary western individuals are confronted. The article argues that the expectation of lasting fulfilment of authentic self-realization may be regarded as a chronic stress factor for the individual and risks creating depression. The modern view of depression supports this p…
Omkring diagnosekulturen – depression som seismograf for samtiden
Denne artikel diskuterer, hvad der har muliggjort, at vi lever i en diagnosekultur. Diagnosekulturen er karakteriseret ved, at ikke alene fagpersoner (læger, psykologer, psykiatere osv.), men også lægmænd og den brede offentlighed mobiliserer psykiatriske diagnoser og kategorier som meningsgivende fortolkningsrammer for stort set alle former for lidelse og afvigelse. Spørgsmålet er, hvordan den logik har kunnet få samfundsmæssig fodfæste. I artik…
Open and Calm – A randomized controlled trial evaluating a public stress reduction program in Denmark
ClinicalTrials.gov.: NCT02140307. Registered May 14 2014
The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization
The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization explores the nature of contemporary malaises, diseases, illnesses and psychosomatic syndromes, examining the manner in which they are related to cultural pathologies of the social body. Multi-disciplinary in approach, the book is concerned with questions of how these conditions are not only manifest at the level of individual patients' bodies, but also how the social 'bodies politic' are related…
Introduction: Thematic Section on Social Pathologies of Contemporary Modernity
Neither the life [or the health] of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both. C. Wright Mills (1959) The Sociological ImaginationSocial pathology was
Late Modern Subjectivity and its Discontents: Anxiety, Depression and Alzheimer’s Disease
Imaginative Methodologies in the Social Sciences: Creativity, Poetics and Rhetoric in Social Research
From silence to diagnosis: The entry of the mentally problematic employee into medical practice
The Presence of Grief: Research-Based Art and Arts-Based Research on Grief
The authors involved in the creation of this text collaborate on a research project called The Culture of Grief, which explores the current conditions and implications of grief. The authors mostly employ conventional forms of qualitative inquiry, but the present text represents an attempt to reach a level of understanding not easily obtained through conventional methods. The group of authors participated as members of the audience in an avant-gar…
The Return of Death in Times of Uncertainty—A Sketchy Diagnosis of Death in the Contemporary ‘Corona Crisis’
For most parts of human history, death was an integral part of life, something that prehistoric and premodern man had no other option than to live with as best as possible. According to historians, death was familiar and tamed, it was at the center of social and cultural life. With the coming of modern secular society, death was increasingly sequestrated and tabooed, moved to the outskirts of society, made invisible and forbidden. Death became a …
Embodying the culture of achievement: Culture between illness and perfection is a ‘thin line’ – obtaining the ideal female body as an act of achievement
In this article, we argue that certain behaviour connected to the attempt to attain contemporary female body ideals in Denmark can be understood as an act of achievement and, thus, as an embodiment of the culture of achievement, as it is characterised in Præstationssamfundet, written by the Danish sociologist Anders Petersen (2016) Hans Reitzels Forlag . Arguing from cultural psychological and sociological standpoints, this article examines how t…
Hospice Care: Between Existential and Medical Hope
Medicalisation of hospice care has been discussed simultaneously with the development of palliative care into a medical speciality. However empirical knowledge of the role of medicalisation in hospice practice is underexplored. This paper considers hospice managers’ perspectives on hospice care in the complex between values related to hospice philosophy and a specialised medical approach to hospice care. Focus groups and small group interviews we…
But what are we doing to that baby?’ Attachment, psy-Speak and designed order in social work
In this paper, we will examine how attachment has become imperative psychological vocabulary in social work. In a case study of social work practice in one Danish municipality, the use of attachment theory shows that the social workers have undeveloped professional insights into attachment theory, yet still use the concept to help comprehend difficult cases. However, their frequent use of the concepts ‘attachment’ and even ‘detachment’ appears th…
Interview with Andreas Reckwitz: A Society of Singularities
This interview addresses Andreas Reckwitz's main work, A Society of Singularities, but puts it in relation to his earlier and later writings. It starts with the strong and broad reception of this work in Germany. Next, it turns to how his understanding of the transformation of the social logics of modernity is related to other sociological understandings. In this way, the crucial distinctions of his work between the general and the particular, be…
The achievement society: Youths too good for their own good
What Kind of Asceticism and Evolution
This article—a response to Johannes Bronkhorst's “Human Behaviors That Reduce Evolutionary Fitness”—focuses on his and the author's differing understandings of evolution and asceticism. The crux of the matter is the understanding of human evolution in terms of biology. While Bronkhorst's understanding builds on Ernst Mayr's and Julian Sorrell Huxley's “modern synthesis,” this article opts for an “evo-devo” perspective that regards culture as an i…
Sociology (14 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Political science (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Psychoanalysis (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works)