The Elusive ‘Docent Grade’: Evaluative Cultures in and Beyond the Swedish Humanities (1876–1969)

In the late nineteenth and for much of the twentieth century, an academic career in Sweden was highly dependent on what grade a scholar’s doctoral dissertation was awarded. Unless receiving a so-called “docent grade”, basically declaring the scholar eligible for seeking the title of docent (associate professor), the prospects of maintaining an academic career were bleak. Throughout the period, this gate-keeping practice provoked controversy, at times extending beyond closed faculty board rooms into public arenas such as periodicals and newspapers. Moreover, conflicts over grades could expose tensions between opposing intellectual traditions, regional cultures of knowledge, and political camps. This article explores the development of the combined doctor/docent assessment and investigates instances when customary practice was challenged, for instance as female docents or applicants with foreign credentials entered the system. By tracing the long history of the docent grade and the debates it spurred, the article shows that the uncodified grading of dissertations was indeed an effective gate-keeping mechanism, but that the evaluative practice was also possible to circumvent and challenge. The article highlights early and alternative forms of peer evaluation in the humanities with particular focus on the assessment of early career academics, arguing that historical perspectives enrich ongoing discussions on evaluative practices in academia, and also open up for new ways to think about how peer review can be organised in years to come.