Teaching material and textbooks undoubtedly operate politically and should be scrutinized concerning the knowledge that they construct and legitimize. But such scrutiny often involves new hegemonies and political complicities that also require further scrutiny. Following Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's discourse analysis the present article…

The aim of this article is to show how governmentality may be used to analyze historical events and discourses, and how this historical analysis can be used as a perspective to problematize contemporary discourses. The example used in this article is from my research on life-extension handbooks published in Sweden 1700-1930, and by this I stress…