Om å selge på Finn.no [Selling on the Digital Marketplace]
Flanere blant ting og skrift [A Flâneur Among Things and Writing]
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7577/ar.5163Keywords:
Finn.no, Walter Benjamin, things, writing, fragment, flaneurAbstract
This essay explores the notion of the superfluous, the act of writing, and the composition of academic texts. At its core stands the German philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), whose thought provides a guiding light throughout the work.
The superfluous is represented by objects listed for sale on the digital marketplace Finn.no. Among them: an old typewriter, herbarium sheets dated 1920, and a collection of bottle caps from the 1980s. The dialogue between these seemingly trivial items and Benjamin’s writings serves to illuminate how value is ascribed to things – and how shifts in perspective can transform our understanding of them. The essay adopts the ideal of the flâneur – one who observes the world with casual attentiveness, moving through it without a fixed route or destination.
Photo: Ingvard Bråten
A central aim of this text is to explore the possibilities of academic writing beyond conventional formats, particularly the IMRAD structure. Rather than bending the content to fit a predefined form, the form of the essay has been shaped by its content. In this way, the text operates on two levels: it reflects on dealing with the superfluous at the digital marketplace, while simultaneously experimenting with how academic writing itself can be composed.
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