Helena Wangefelt Ström | Uppsala University (original) (raw)

Upcoming by Helena Wangefelt Ström

Collecting and Display seminar series, 2024

Online seminar at the Institute for Historical Research (IHR), London, and the seminar series Col... more Online seminar at the Institute for Historical Research (IHR), London, and the seminar series Collecting and Display.

What happens with a sacred object when it enters the collection of a museum, of a private collector, or – historically – in a treasury? How does the changed context affect the identity and the viewer’s understanding of the object – and how does the display play in?

My research in the field of Museology has investigated the transfers between sacredness and heritage with a particular focus on early modern collections in Rome and Venice, on the modes of display, and on the interplay with the beholders. One of the key concepts in this investigation is Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s (1998) The agency of display, in my exploration of various ambitions in displays of sacred heritage in Post-Reformation Rome and Venice. I found that the displays changed in order to satisfy and not provoke the emerging cultural (and often non-Catholic) tourists in the course of the 17th century. The displays studied are descriptions in travel journals, presentations in guidebooks, and other accounts of how collections and famous objects have been accessible, presented, and contextualized, and to whom. My results indicate hybrid agencies of display regarding sacred objects in collections during the early modern period: these objects needed to cater the pious pilgrims ascribing sacred and soul-saving qualities to them, as well as the leisure travellers or foreign scholars who more commonly emphasized the artistic, historical, or monetary qualities in same objects. I argue that this ambiguity, or possible rivalry, between agencies of displays of sacred objects is rooted in the Post-Reformation period, but remains a challenge for museums and other collections today.

Dr. Helena Wangefelt Ström obtained her PhD in Museology at Umeå University in 2022, investigating the transfers between heritage and sacredness in the early modern period and today. Her academic background in History of Ideas and Science led her to this topic, focusing on Swedish early modern collections of Catholic objects. She has a professional background including work in a famous early modern collection (Skokloster Castle) and Queen Christina’s manuscript collection in the Vatican Library. She has won several scholarships to pursue her research in Italy, and has presented her research in numerous international conferences, also as a keynote speaker. She has been part of the steering committees in two international research groups; EmoDiR (Early Modern Religious Dissent and Radicalism, emodir.net(Opens in new window)) and RCHG (Religion and Collections Heritage Group). She joined Uppsala University in 2023 as Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, and will be in charge of the masters programme in her field at the Department of ALM there.

Publications by Helena Wangefelt Ström

PhD thesis, 2022

The thesis will be defended at Umeå University on December 16. Opponent: Dr. Sabina Brevaglieri,... more The thesis will be defended at Umeå University on December 16.
Opponent: Dr. Sabina Brevaglieri, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Supervisors: Associate Professor Anna Foka, Uppsala University, and Associate Professor Federico Barbierato, Università degli Studi di Verona

The overarching aim of this thesis, situated within Museology and Heritage Studies, is to investigate the different modes and devices of transfer between sacredness and heritage. The research question, 'What happens in the transfer between heritage and sacredness?', is investigated as production of sacred heritage in early modern Europe and specifically Sweden, Rome, and Venice (Part I), and as uses of the sacred as heritage in different times and contexts (Part II). The research question is investigated by applying three core analytical lenses: Time (to Part I), Uses (to Part II), and concluding by consolidating Agents to the final discussion and conclusions. The analysis draws upon Habermas and Taylor’s respective theories and concepts regarding post-secularism, and Latour’s concepts of 'agent collectives' conceptual 'imbroglios' is used to explain transfers between categories presented in Part I and II.

Using a variety of sources as case studies, this study further elucidates new categories created for sacred heritage and how these adapt to new uses. This research provides an analysis of the fluidity and complexity of categories at the intersection of religion and heritage. The thesis suggests new models to apply to religious and sacred artefacts that address their classification complexity and further corresponding to religious audiences today. The thesis argues that heritage as a concept and the creation of museums, in scholarship often referred to as post-Enlightenment phenomena, can be identified already in the post- Reformation period. Further, the thesis argues that the separation of 'sacred' and 'profane' as categories in early modernity, intended to protect the sacred from profanation and harm, facilitated a secular understanding and a possibility to de-select sacredness, thereby creating sacredness as 'heritage'. A secular way of narrating and explaining religion in museums and heritage contexts was exported globally with the western museum template and the Latin Christian understanding of time and materiality. Extending the consequences of the transformations addressed in the research question into the challenges in societies today, the thesis argues that religious literacy and a post-secular competence are needed to make informed decisions for a resilient society – not least within heritage management.

Articles by Helena Wangefelt Ström

ANANKE, 2020

This article presents the course outline and some of the work done by the students during the cou... more This article presents the course outline and some of the work done by the students during the course Heritage Politics and Identity at Uppsala University Campus Gotland in 2019, for which the authors were, respectively, in charge and assistant. The course reflected on the significance of heritage and its ties to cultural identity and politics. After a brief introduction to the approach to heritagization and the understanding of heritage as employed in ths course, the research done by some of the students from allover the world is presented, drawn from the academic posters they designed and presented as part of their examination. The topics vary from reflexions on UNESCO nominations, post-colonialism and human rights, to accessability, tourism and management in the heritage field.

Il contributo presenta il lavoro svolto dagli studenti del corso Heritage Politics and Identity presso Uppsala University Campus Gotland, riflettendo sul significato di heritage e i suoi legami con l'identità culturale e la politica. Dopo una breve introduzione sull'approccio verso la patrimonializzazione tenuto nel corso, si presentano le interessanti ricerche di alcuni studenti, con provenienza da tutto il mondo, che variano da riflessioni su le nomine UNESCO, post-colonialismo e diritti umani, accessibilità, turismo e gestione del patrimonio.

ICOFOM Study Series 47, 2019

Abstract This paper discusses what happens when religion in the shape of objects imbued with re... more Abstract
This paper discusses what happens when religion in the shape of objects imbued with religious meaning is transformed into cultural heritage, suggesting three models to discuss its consequences for museums. The first model builds on the museum as a killing of previous identities, and the objects as provided with new identities as museum objects. A second model is the hybrid identity, where a museum object can possess several identities simultaneously, depending on the eyes of the beholder: sacredness, art object, or evidence of history. The third model is defined by the uses of objects. Distinguishing between cultual use and cultural use is crucial here.I argue that these different approaches to sacred objects in museum pose different museologicalchallenges and possibilities, and also ascribes different agencies to museum staff as well as to the visitors.

Résumé
Comment les musées affectent-ils le sacré? Trois modèles suggérés
Cet article traite de ce qui se passe lorsque la religion se transforme en patrimoine culturel sous la forme d'objets imprégnés d'une signification religieuse. Il propose trois modèles pour discuter de ses conséquences pour les musées. Le premier modèle s'appuie sur le musée pour détruire les identités précédentes et les objets dotés de nouvelles identités en tant qu'objets de musée. Un deuxième modèle est l’identité hybride, où un objet de musée peut posséder plusieurs identités simultanément, selon les yeux du spectateur: caractère sacré, objet d’art ou preuve de l’histoire. Le troisième modèle est défini par les utilisations des objets. La distinction entre usage cultuel et usage culturel est cruciale ici.Je soutiens que ces différentes approches des objets sacrés dans les musées posent des défis et des possibilités muséologiques différents, et attribuent également différentes agences au personnel du musée ainsi qu’aux visiteurs.

Visions of North in Premodern Europe, 2018

Destructive, infertile, intellectually inferior, and the home of witches and werewolves. A northe... more Destructive, infertile, intellectually inferior, and the home of witches and werewolves. A northern visitor to southern Europe in the early modern period travelled — willingly or not — into a world imbued with forceful associations related to the North that were well estab- lished, historically rooted, and alive in the minds of the people in the South. These concepts, mythological images, and archetypes were well known also by the northerners themselves, and were, contrary to what one might expect, not merely a yoke of negative expectations but also in some cases cleverly used to enhance certain aspects of a constructed image or a desired reputation. This article wishes to bring forth some of these images, and give examples of how they were used and affected in particular the religious relations between North and South in the post-Reformation period.

Gotländskt Arkiv 2013, Nov 2013

"The Middle Ages are dead – Long live the Middle Ages!” Epilogue on How Religion Became Cultural ... more "The Middle Ages are dead – Long live the Middle Ages!” Epilogue on How Religion Became Cultural Heritage

“The Middle Ages are dead – Long live the Middle Ages!” exclaimed
a Swedish author and critic in a national newspaper in the summer 2013. Are the Middle Ages dead, or are they in fact alive yet newborn, with a new and different identity as heritage? This epilogue discusses the tension between the concepts of religion and heritage, and aims at highlighting how the medieval religious history on Gotland has been transformed into heritage and used as new narratives and in different contexts during the following centuries. By re-charging objects, rituals, buildings and places with new content and meaning, the medieval by then turned heritage has been dismissed as outmoded, used as building material, admired by artists and historians, collected and displayed by museums, and today – though sometimes eclectically – used in reenactments and advertisments."

Kulturella Perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift (peer reviewed) (ISSN 1102-7908), Jun 2013

Death in the souvenir shop: Mortal remains as cult and curiosities Museums, heritage productio... more Death in the souvenir shop: Mortal remains as cult and curiosities

Museums, heritage production and Christian relics all deal with and are built on death in various aspects. Transferring an everyday object into the museum sphere can be regarded as an intentional death, a rebirth to a new identity and a new context. Relics are the byproducts of death, given a new life as subject to religious veneration. When inscribed in yet another context of heritage, musealisation and tourism, they can once again be regarded as dead and resurrected to a new life and identity. When saintly bones journey from human life through death, sacredness, political power and tourism, to something for sale in the souvenir shop, is it layer upon layer of death – or an endless chain of resurrections and new lives?

Lychnos, Jan 1, 2011

"Sacred – threatening – historical. The heritageification of Catholic items and practices in late... more "Sacred – threatening – historical. The heritageification of Catholic items and practices in late 17th-century Sweden. By Helena Wangefelt Ström. This article aims at bringing together two concepts with many similarities, heritage and sacredness, using theories presently under construction in an international and interdisciplinary research field dealing with heritage production, politics and power. Focus here is on the process and the
agenda more than the product, and particularly on the transvaluation taking place when something is given heritage status: the form is intact, but the content is new and different. These theories are applied on to a 17th-century Swedish national inquiry for historical remains or ”antiqui- ties”, ordered by the King and performed by the local clergy, an inquiry where not only the expected and specifically requested runic stones, pre- historic graves or famous battle fields were listed, but in many cases also far more recent Catholic items and memories, which were thus trans- formed from sacred objects to parts of the national heritage. The hypoth- esis presented and argued for is that this listing and, in fact, heritage production also worked as an act of control and domestication of the potentially dangerous: the threatening, former sacred, was made harmless when – literally or figuratively – locked up in a museum case."

Kulturella perspektiv, Umeå, 2006 (15):3, pp. 67-76., 2006

"Cultural heritage: An icon for a secularised time? This article explores how the term "sacred... more "Cultural heritage: An icon for a secularised time?

This article explores how the term "sacredness" can be applied to the discussion about cultural heritage and raises the question whether cultural heritage might even have substituted institutuionalised religion as an object of devotion in a secularised society. A comparison between the religious field and the heritage field is performed by studying two specific examples: the icon of the Holy Trinity and the medieval city wall surrounding the city of Visby. Different aspects of these examples are examined, such as Creating distance - Creating intimacy; Pedagogical example - Authenticity; Subject and Object - Who's zoomin' who?; To bless and to petrify; Preservation and use, form and function. The parallels between the religious field and the heritage field lead to the conclusion that the concept of 'holiness' should to be taken into account more profoundly when discussing cultural heritage. This becomes even more relevant in a society of increasing cultural diversity.

Papers by Helena Wangefelt Ström

Il contributo presenta il lavoro svolto dagli studenti del corso Heritage Politics and Identity p... more Il contributo presenta il lavoro svolto dagli studenti del corso Heritage Politics and Identity presso Uppsala University Campus Gotland, riflettendo sul significato di heritage e i suoi legami con ...

Museology and the Sacred. Materials for a discussion. (Ed. François Mairesse), 2018

Religion in Museums: Euthanized Sacredness, in the Beholder’s Eye, or a Multi-Tool for Shifting ... more Religion in Museums: Euthanized Sacredness, in the Beholder’s Eye, or a Multi-Tool for Shifting Needs? Three suggested models to discuss how museums affect sacredness (2018) MUSEOLOGY AND THE SACRED - MATERIALS FOR A DISCUSSION Papers from the ICOFOM 41th symposium held in Tehran (Iran), 15-19 October 2018, 145-148. Ed. François Mairesse

Religion in museums: Euthanized sacredness, in the beholder’s eye, or a
multi-tool for shifting needs? Three suggested models to discuss how
museums affect sacredness.

Abstract for paper for the ICOFOM 41st symposium Museology and the sacred
Tehran, 15-19 October 2018. Aimed for the analysis plan Museality-heritage-sacred.
by Helena Wangefelt Ström, PhD candidate in Museology, Umeå University (Sweden).
helena.wangefelt.strom@umu.se

What happens when religion in the shape of objects imbued with religious meaning is
transformed into cultural heritage? What values are added, what are lost, and who is the
performing agent? These questions concern what museums do to objects connected to
religion, calling for a meditated use of terms such as holy, sacred, religious, and spiritual (all
employed in recent research and policy documents by, for example, UNESCO, while in many
cases as interchangeable). This paper suggests three models to understand the processes of
heritagisation of religion and the factors and agents involved, starting from a historical
background in European, in particular Italian, Early Modernity.

A frequently used scholarly model depicts the museum as a killing of previous identities, and
the objects as provided with entirely new identities, and lives, as museum objects. This view
brings on dramatic effects for sacred objects, how they are handled and narrated in the
museum, and possibly on how they are viewed by the visitors. The use or not of information
signs before sacred objects in museums is an aspect on this matter.
The second model is the hybrid identity, where a museum object can be said to possess two
authentic identities simultaneously, depending on the views and beliefs of the beholder:
authentic sacredness, or authentic art object and evidence of history. This view may fit well
with the focus on the individual in our time.
The third model presented is based on the two previous ones, and suggests a hybridity not
only in identities or living/dead, but defined by the uses of the objects. Even musealized
objects can, as in the cases of religious treasuries or of certain religious images in museums,
shift identity between museum object, object of devotion (to be carried in processions or
used in rituals), legitimization symbol (bishops’ ordinations etc), and, historically, as a

monetary reserve to be sold if needed. The identity of the object shifts, also in practice of
being looked at behind glass or being used and touched, depending on the use currently
applied to it. A distinction between cultual use and cultural use is relevant for this model.

I argue that these different approaches to sacred objects in museum pose different
museological challenges and possibilities, and also ascribes different agencies to museum
staff as well as to the visitors.

Essays and other texts by Helena Wangefelt Ström

Conference Presentations by Helena Wangefelt Ström

Föreläsning vid konferensen 'På liv och död. Samtal om kulturarv, lärande och besöksnäring', arra... more Föreläsning vid konferensen 'På liv och död. Samtal om kulturarv, lärande och besöksnäring', arrangerad av Riksantikvarieämbetet, Uppsala universitet, och Svenska kyrkan.

Levande kyrkliga kulturarv: konferens på Hälsinglands Museum. LEVANDE KULTURARV är ett uttryck so... more Levande kyrkliga kulturarv: konferens på Hälsinglands Museum.
LEVANDE KULTURARV är ett uttryck som förekommer ofta men som sällan förklaras. Det kan ses som kulturarv – berättelser, traditioner, föremål och byggnader – som fortfarande används för sina ursprungliga syften och i sina traditionella sammanhang. Därmed verkar det stå i motsats till de föremål och fenomen som kan sägas ha museali- serats eller kulturarvifierats. Men behöver verkligen de kyrkliga historiska objekten ses som döda föremål? Kan de ursprungliga betydelserna finnas kvar att tolkas och delas av dagens människor och kan kulturarven laddas om med nya betydelser och upp- levelser? Kan kyrkligt kulturarv och konst uttrycka både tro och vetenskap samtidigt och kan tron vara en konstart i sig? Konferensen Levande kyrkliga kulturarv rör sig i skärningspunkterna mellan konstvetenskap, religion, konst och kulturvård i ett sam- manhang där kulturarv kan vara både levande och dött samtidigt och i det senare fallet kanske bara är något skendött som kan återupplivas med nya och föränderliga innehåll.

RSA Renaissance Society of America Conference in Chicago, 2024

In 2023, Sweden has attracted international attention, in some parts even rage, due to the public... more In 2023, Sweden has attracted international attention, in some parts even rage, due to the public burning of religious scriptures protected by a legal system permitting and protecting the acts as part of the freedom of speech. These actions, performed by individuals as provocations and for different motives, have sparked a national debate around the safeguarding of the freedom of expression act, the freedom of press act from 1766—enrolled in the UNESCO Memory of the World List in 2023—and blasphemy of the sacred. A professor in Theology remarked that Sweden lacks an understanding of the sacred, and thereby also the ability to understand the problem and the provocation.
This paper aims to suggest an early modern background to this claimed inability and religious illiteracy, rooted in the transformation of unwanted and dissenting religion into history, art, materiality, and—with the terminology of our time—heritage. The argument suggests that the profound materialization and disenchantment of the Catholic which was performed in Sweden from the seventeenth century (as demonstrated in previous research) in fact paved way for an increasingly secular understanding of religion. Simplified, in early modern Sweden the emphasis concerning religion shifted from Sacredness to Law, Rights, and Freedom.

Conference Kyrkliga kulturarvsmöten – Nyskapade riter och relationer, 10 October 2023, Uppsala

Hälsinglands museum är sedan många år engagerat i det kyrkliga kulturarvet. Arbetet har skett gen... more Hälsinglands museum är sedan många år engagerat i det kyrkliga kulturarvet. Arbetet har skett genom konst- och kulturhistoriska utställningar, i samlingsförvaltningen och i olika utvecklingsprojekt där bland annat Svenska kyrkan har deltagit. Nu vill vi i ett symposium reflektera över vad detta kulturarv innebär och hur det kan hållas angeläget och levande. Detta görs utifrån flera kyrkliga föremål och motiv, där vi diskuterar hur de har använts och vad de betyder idag och vilken världs-bild, tro och människosyn de förmedlar.

Som framgår i avhandlingen Kyrkliga kulturarv i en ny tid (Henrik Lindblad, 2023) är det kyrkliga kulturarvet i sin helhet ett allmänintresse och det utgör därmed en angelägenhet och rättighet för alla att ta del av. Studien visar att samhällets modernisering och sekularisering, med omfattande lagskydd och kyrkoantikvarisk ersättning, har bidragit till en uppdelning, fragmentisering och polarisering av kulturarvet. Det ses som antingen sekulärt eller religiöst, konst- eller kultobjekt, statlig eller kyrklig angelägenhet, materiellt eller immateriellt, en tillgång eller en belastning för samhället och kyrkan. Det kyrkoantikvariska systemet har varit bra för vård och bevarande, men riskerar samtidigt att reducera kyrkorna till arkitektoniska och antikvariska objekt som skilts från sina sammanhang, som inte längre talar till oss och där berättelserna dör ut.

Utifrån dessa slutsatser vill symposiet visa hur kyrkliga kulturarv, konst, traditioner och handlingar återskapas, nyskapas och tolkas i samtiden och förs vidare i möten mellan människor. Detta görs genom att belysa många aspekter av kulturarvet och hur de kan vara relevanta i samtiden och för framtiden. Istället för fragmentisering och polarisering vill vi ge en ökad helhetssyn med utrymme för fler tolkningar och synsätt. Under symposiet presenteras olika kyrkliga kulturarvsobjekt och fenomen som triumfkrucifixet, dopfunten, kyrktagningspallen, musealiseringen av heligheten och det mörka eller svåra kulturarvet. Vi samtalar om hur dessa motiv och berättelser, nyskapade riter och relationer, lever i kyrkorna och i människorna, vad vi kan lära av historien och på vilket vis den lever vidare i oss, nu och i framtiden.

Symposium: Gustav Vasa – 500 år av representation och reception Med Gustav Vasas trontillträde k... more Symposium: Gustav Vasa – 500 år av representation och reception

Med Gustav Vasas trontillträde kommer renässansens och reformationens idéer om makt, religion och visuell kultur till Sverige. Senmedeltidens ymniga och rika fromhetsliv omförhandlas. En mer kvalificerad hovkultur etableras, där frågor om representation, exklusivitet och identitet ständigt står i förgrunden. Symposiet måndagen den 16 oktober är ett samarbete mellan Kungl. Vitterhetsakademien och Nationalmuseum.

Gustav Vasa månade om en positiv historieskrivning redan under sin egen livstid, samtidigt som det inte heller saknas kritiska samtidsröster. Ända sedan 1500-talet har frågor om den nya regentens person och politiska gärning debatterats. Bildkonst, musik och dikt har fungerat som förhandlingsytor, där olika idéer och ideologier har kunnat mötas och prövas.

De senaste 20 åren har delvis förändrat och nyanserat synen på Gustav Vasa som person och monark. Under en heldag vill vi belysa hans gärning genom att presentera nya rön av framstående forskare inom fältet, för att därigenom ge tillfälle till en bredare kunskapsspridning och fortsatt debatt. Konstarterna och framför allt den visuella kulturen kommer att stå i fokus, samtidigt som deras närhet till rent politiska och kyrkliga frågor lyfts fram.

Program, se: https://www.vitterhetsakademien.se/akademien/samarbeten/2023-06-28-symposium-gustav-vasa---500-ar-av-representation-och-reception.html

Dialoghi sull'Europa, 2024

Panel presentation and discussion on the heritagization of Europe, within the Dialoghi Sull'Europ... more Panel presentation and discussion on the heritagization of Europe, within the Dialoghi Sull'Europa conference at the Political Sciences Department at Sapienza University, Rome.

La patrimonializzazione dell’Europa: sfide e opportunità per i musei e per il patrimonio tra passato e presente.
Dialogo con Helena Wangefelt Ström. Intervengono Ulf R. Hansson, Federico Barbierato
Coordina: Michaela Valente
Sala Lauree | h. 10.00-12.00
In collaborazione con Istituto Svedese di Studi classici Roma e Dottorato in Storia e culture dell’Europa

Scientific Committee: Sabina Brevaglieri (Humboldt University- Berlin; scientific Coordinator); M... more Scientific Committee: Sabina Brevaglieri (Humboldt University- Berlin; scientific Coordinator); Mariana Françozo (University Leiden), Federica Favino (La Sapienza Università di Roma), Matthijs Jonker (KNIR), José Pardo-Tomás (IMF-CSIC, Barcelona), Emma Sallent Del Colombo (University of Barcelona)

This exploratory workshop has been designed with a two-fold purpose. On the one hand, it aims to substantially contribute to the conceptualisation and design of a ground-breaking digital humanities project dedicated to the so-called Tesoro Messicano (Mexican Treasury) and its multiple production and circulation contexts between the old and new worlds. On the other hand, it introduces a series of working meetings that are expected to boost a highly innovative research agenda focusing on the complex relationships between cultural heritage and history. Thus, the potential of the concept of paper-heritage-making will be analysed, and thoroughly discussed at the analytical crossroad between a historical issue (heritage as a process), a conceptual resource (digital), and an impact strategy oriented towards the circulation of knowledge and know-how, interdisciplinary training-through research, and social participation. This multilevel approach will continuously return to Rome, meant as both a trans-local urban space, opened to further comparison and entanglement, and a complex global dimension materialised through scholarly, diplomatic and missionary networks as well as multiple contexts of plural confessional cultures.

The workshop argues for the Mexican Treasury as a paper-monument, i.e. a complex artefact made up of strict interconnections of textual, visual and material dimensions, fostering shifting entanglements of knowledge practices, multiple searches for legitimation, political claims, and competing memory production. As is well known, the Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus was published in 1651 as the late result of Francisco Hernández’s complex medical and natural-historical legacy. Though many actors participating in its plural and long-lasting making regarded this “monstrous” in-folio as a scientific failure, it was nevertheless published in Rome. While the Papal city was losing its political centrality in Europe and renegotiating its universal aurea, the Mexican Treasury was resumed, and a complex bulk of knowledge on the natural American world was made public after lengthy exposure to different appropriations, re-significations and sedimentations, thus reinventing spatial and temporal junctures with the earlier past.
In the last years, the apparently increasing scholarly attention towards such a “born-old” natural history of the new worlds invites us to reflect on its multiple material dimensions, plural contexts, and different uses. By opening up a collective reflection on this paper-monument, the time is now ripe to thematise the Papal city as a complex urban space of paper sedimentation, artefact entrapments, as well as a trans-local communicative arena where knowledge-making and competing processes of value-creation, resignification, oblivion and destruction, continuously renegotiate the future.

RCHG’s first Conference aims to provide something for all the huge variety of people concerned wi... more RCHG’s first Conference aims to provide something for all the huge variety of people concerned with religion and collections.

We are looking for applications in these four broad themes, from which the conference will be selected:

Museum and Gallery Collection
Archival and Research
Audiences
Creativity and Curation

There will be opportunity for questions and discussion at the end of each session
THURSDAY 30 JUNE ONLINE 10 00: WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION. Crispin Paine and John Reeve, co-chairs: RCHG and its aims and priorities

Collecting and Display seminar series, 2024

PhD thesis, 2022

ANANKE, 2020

ICOFOM Study Series 47, 2019

Visions of North in Premodern Europe, 2018

Gotländskt Arkiv 2013, Nov 2013

Kulturella Perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift (peer reviewed) (ISSN 1102-7908), Jun 2013

Death in the souvenir shop: Mortal remains as cult and curiosities Museums, heritage productio... more Death in the souvenir shop: Mortal remains as cult and curiosities

Lychnos, Jan 1, 2011

Kulturella perspektiv, Umeå, 2006 (15):3, pp. 67-76., 2006

"Cultural heritage: An icon for a secularised time? This article explores how the term "sacred... more "Cultural heritage: An icon for a secularised time?

Museology and the Sacred. Materials for a discussion. (Ed. François Mairesse), 2018

Religion in museums: Euthanized sacredness, in the beholder’s eye, or a
multi-tool for shifting needs? Three suggested models to discuss how
museums affect sacredness.

RSA Renaissance Society of America Conference in Chicago, 2024

Conference Kyrkliga kulturarvsmöten – Nyskapade riter och relationer, 10 October 2023, Uppsala

Symposium: Gustav Vasa – 500 år av representation och reception Med Gustav Vasas trontillträde k... more Symposium: Gustav Vasa – 500 år av representation och reception

Program, se: https://www.vitterhetsakademien.se/akademien/samarbeten/2023-06-28-symposium-gustav-vasa---500-ar-av-representation-och-reception.html

Dialoghi sull'Europa, 2024

We are looking for applications in these four broad themes, from which the conference will be selected:

Museum and Gallery Collection
Archival and Research
Audiences
Creativity and Curation

ACHS 2020 book of abstracts reduced, 2020

Abstract for paper presentation at the Association of Critical Heritage Studies 5th Biennial Conf... more Abstract for paper presentation at the Association of Critical Heritage Studies 5th Biennial Conference, 26-30 August 2020, UCL, London
Intended for the sub-theme TheFuture Museum: Collections and Collecting

If secularism, as argued by Charles Taylor, does tie down religion and things connected to it to this world and to time, and if the world and time in question is western and Christian: how does this affect narratives and displays in museums and heritage settings? Managing religious heritage - objects, places, rituals, etc, connected to and originally used for religious purposes - in secular but increasingly culturally diverse societies and for an increasingly heterogenous audience, has attracted academic interest and sparked debates in recent years. Presenting examples particularly from Early Modern Italy, this paper argues that the intricate relations between religion, heritage, secularism, and time were forged in Post-Reformation Europe, directing and eventually exporting the secular display of religion which is predominant in western museums.
One question might be: What does secularism do to (religious) heritage? In Charles Taylor’s discussion on secu- larism, the pervading idea is that secularism is inextricably connected to time: etymologically (from seculum), and through the context in which it was conceived, namely within the Latin Christianity in the West and its linear and eschatological understanding of time. Secularism implies that things and phenomena are tied to a “thisworldliness”, an immanent identity, opposite to the for religious things generally claimed otherworldli- ness and transcendence. Heritagisation of religion does not necessarily imply secularisation, while in practice it often does – but does this also inevitably include a “westwashing” in terms of implicit Christian and western normative views? This paper explores if Taylor’s assumptions are valid for religious heritage, and if so, what effects and challenges this may bring for the future/s.

ASA 19 Conference, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 2019

Paper short abstract: Has Modernity constructed a rivalry between religion and heritage, and ther... more Paper short abstract:
Has Modernity constructed a rivalry between religion and heritage, and thereby created problems in use and conservation? This paper explores the history of the division between heritage and sacredness, leading to contemporary examples on managing encounters between visitors and religious heritage

Paper long abstract:
"Why museums are the new churches" was the title of a BBC Culture essay (June 2015), reflecting on how museums and art galleries have replaced churches as places of meaning and context, perhaps even worship, in society today. Is the reversed true as well: that churches - and other religious heritage buildings and sites - are identified and marketing themselves more as museums, where heritage narratives and preservations are competing with religious identity? Or, is this polarization an invention in the spirit of Modernity, while the sacred, the historical and the worldly in fact have coexisted and reinforced each other through history? No matter the answer to these questions, they present challenges to the management and display of religious heritage sites and religion in museums - not least in terms of addressing the visitors and their shifting expectations and beliefs. What can be allowed in a museum: kissing, caressing, kneeling, or praying? Who has the insight to separate believing pilgrims from fitness and culture minded tourists at a pilgrimage site - and do even the visitors know how to label themselves? This problem may seem like emblematic for our post-secular time, while in fact it dates back several centuries to the earliest shift from pilgrims to tourists in early modern Italy and France. This paper aims at exploring the history of the division and competition between heritage and sacredness, and presents a number of international contemporary examples on how encounters between visitors and religious heritage can be managed.

What challenges and opportunities do migrations bring to the self-conception and the established ... more What challenges and opportunities do migrations bring to the self-conception and the established narratives on the identity and religion of a society? Addressing the formulation in the call, this paper aims to highlight and discuss the shifting Early Modern narratives on religions and religious practices, objects, and identity, by exploring presentations adapted to foreigners in Catholic Europe, and in particular Rome and Venice. The heterogeneous visitors here are not part of a huge migration, and rarely members of an expat community manners, and networks. However, the need to explain and simplify not least the religious identity of a place, to make it comprehensible and non-offensive to the foreigner's beholding eye, appears to be the same regardless of the beholder's status. Religious identity (or identities) after mid 16 th and through 17 th century in Catholic Europe was communicated in part through collections, public feasts, displays, and a growing number of guidebooks directed to foreigners. The guidebooks, with Rome and Venice as examples, demonstrate a shift from a normative understanding of visitors as Catholic pilgrims, to one of a heterogeneous flow of people with various religions and backgrounds. Foreigners also caused disturbance: Lutherans eating meat on Fridays, Protestants at a church celebration preventing a miracle from taking place by their mere presence, or Catholics mocking Lutheran books displayed to a group of foreign visitors in the Vatican Library. The increasing diversity in religious beliefs, customs, and norms in Early Modern Europe appears to have created turbulence, but also creative ways to deal with difference. By presenting examples on new displays and narratives about otherness, for the imagined Other, I hope to bring forth glimpses of fear, curiosity, estrangement and encounters across boundaries which might give some perspectives also on our world today.

Abstract for paper presentation at the Remembering the Reformation conference 7–9 September 2017 ... more Abstract for paper presentation at the Remembering the Reformation conference
7–9 September 2017 at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge

In 1683, the Lutheran parish priest in mid-Sweden Ovansjö states, with concern, that his parishioners show a “slowness in leaving behind the Popish superstitions”. However, he adds: “And while I experience that old Men, who showed me such things and told me stories, have departed through death; might be that also the old tales will be Forgotten.”. The quote is to be found in the protocols following the Royal Proclamation and Decree regarding Ancient Monuments and Antiquities of the Realm presented in Sweden in 1666, and is one of numerous showing an intricate roleplay between memory, oblivion, history and heritagisation within the Post-Reformation context.

This paper aims at exploring the instrumentalisation of history and memory in Post-Reformation Sweden by bringing together two concepts with many similarities, ‘heritage’ and ‘sacredness’, and by focusing the heritagisation process and its consequences for memories – or claimed lack thereof – of the Catholic past. The production of heritage through a 17th century Swedish national inquiry for historical remains or ”antiquities”, ordered by the King and performed through three decades by the local clergy, forms my case study. The clergymen’s protocols listed not only the expected and requested runic stones, prehistoric graves or famous battle fields, but also far more recent Catholic objects and memories, which were thus transformed from sacred objects to parts of the national heritage. The hypothesis presented and argued for is that this listing and, in fact, heritagisation also worked as an act of control and domestication of the potentially dangerous: the former sacred, now threatening and therefore forgotten, was made harmless and possible to remember again when – literally or figuratively – locked up in a museum case.

When a Lutheran priest in late 17th century Sweden writes his son, peregrinating in southern Euro... more When a Lutheran priest in late 17th century Sweden writes his son, peregrinating in southern Europe, he explicitly warns him to wear fancy clothes or show off extravagant foreign habits when returning home. Instead, his son is advised to adapt the modest black dress commonly worn, in order not to attract suspicions of improper Catholic influences when abroad. The possible dangers and the problems facing the often young northern travellers in Catholic territories were debated even in the parliament through the century, emphasizing different aspects of the encounters with Catholic culture and practice. Was it advisable for a Lutheran visitor to enter a Catholic church when a Mass was celebrated there, and if so: should he stand beside the service and watch it, or could he stand within the congregation – and even kneel when prescribed – without compromising his conscience and spiritual purity?
Furthermore, I will let the voice of the Other, i.e. the visited, be heard. The fear of the foreign was present also here, and non-Catholic visitors in increasing numbers posed a challenge to religious communities and to the local everyday life. One example is the case of the liquefaction of San Gennaro’s blood in Naples, where the religious miracle several times was prevented to occur by the mere presence of ‘heretic’ tourists.
In this paper, I want to address the attitudes and fears in 17th century Sweden before the inevitable meeting and interaction with Catholicism when travelling south, and the challenges and clashes when facing the local community – a community which gradually was forced into a space of coexistence and of differentiation with the expansion of international cultural tourism.

Abstract for paper presentation at the ACHS Association for Critical Heritage Studies conference ... more Abstract for paper presentation at the ACHS Association for Critical Heritage Studies conference 6-10 June 2016, Montréal. Proposed for a 20 minutes presentation within the session OS080: Religion as heritage – heritage as religion?

" Why museums are the new churches ". This was the title of an essay on BBC Culture (June 2015), where the author reflected on how museums and art galleries have replaced churches as places of meaning and context, perhaps even worship, in society today. Might the reversed case be true as well: that churches – and other religious heritage buildings and sites – are becoming more and more of museums, when heritage narratives and preservations are competing with religious identity? Or is this contradiction, at least in parts, an invention in the spirit of modernity, while the sacred and the historical and worldly previously have coexisted and reinforced each other through history?

One way to shed light on the complex relation between heritage and religion in society today is to go back in time and explore some of the roots of this (un)holy alliance. This paper aims at presenting a brief historical background to the topic of churches and religion as heritage, and to explore examples of sacred uses of heritage, and vice versa, from the two most different cases of Rome and Venice. These two cities provide examples of strong heritage narratives, various uses of sacredness and heritage for political, religious, artistic, financial and other purposes, where the churches and holy places have played a crucial role in these uses through the centuries. Rome, building a new identity as an aspiring capital of Christianity on the ruins of an empire and claiming to be " the new Jerusalem " ; Venice, competing with Constantinople over political and religious power in the Eastern Mediterranean and claiming to be the new Constantinople. In both cities with their different driving forces religious materiality in general, and relics in particular, played an essential role in the development of religion and politics and in the fulfillment of ambitions, and it resulted in the sacred pilgrimage sites, the tourist attractions, and the conservation dilemmas that are the numerous churches.

Throughout history, churches and Christianity have not rarely utilized history and heritage arguments to strengthen their own position, and churches have also functioned as a central public space open to all and providing an opportunity to enjoy art, look at spectacular objects of interest, and experience the history of a place. In this respect churches can be said to have started to heritagise themselves, long before the word was invented, and long before the identities as heritage or religion started to compete – over narratives, money, attention, and legitimacy. Have we, as an aftermath of Modernity and the passion for categories, constructed a rivalry between religion and heritage which makes problematic questions of use and conservation even more difficult?

What were the options for post-Reformation Sweden, in terms of handling the artefacts from the Ca... more What were the options for post-Reformation Sweden, in terms of handling the artefacts from the Catholic past – a past that was also still alive, representing a serious threat to power structures based on Lutheran Orthodoxy? What stories could be told, what objects allowed to be preserved, and what memories should better be buried and forgotten?
This paper aims at showing how fear of the Catholic past and present teamed up with the thriving antiquarianism in 17th century Sweden, and created an alternative to oblivion and demolishment: heritagisation through new contexts and narratives. Things forbidden since more than a century - incense burners, saint’s images, relics and holy wells – were described as a distant past together with giants and runestones. Catholic items and practices were inscribed in a context of national gothicism and pride, in a historicizing language, and thus made politically useful and religiously harmless – with just the stroke of a pen.

This paper wishes to explore the material and emotional impact of the heritagisation of Catholic ... more This paper wishes to explore the material and emotional impact of the heritagisation of Catholic sacredness and traditions that took place in 17th century post-Reformation Sweden. The change in religion inscribed Catholic objects, practices and buildings in a historic and aesthetic context, and performed a transformation from kissing and caressing to see-but-not-touch, from dialogue and interaction to top-down information, and from physical sensuality to material preservation. I wish to highlight these emotional aspects on sacred materiality, and to discuss what effects the shift from a primarily emotional to an intellectual approach to godly things had on religious objects.
I also want to bring forward the less affective and more negative and disturbing emotions towards religious items – in particular items that were out of religious fashion, such as for example incense burners, relics and reliquaries, and statues of various saints. What were the reactions and attitudes towards these outmoded, material and strongly charged memories from a religious past? How was the heritage status used to make these emotionally and politically difficult objects more manageable? I want to discuss this topic and these questions by focusing the process when heritage is produced – by whom, for whom, and with what agenda.

What happens in the transition between sacredness and heritage status, when objects, rituals, spa... more What happens in the transition between sacredness and heritage status, when objects, rituals, spaces etc are physically or contextually moved from the devotional sphere to the museum narratives? This question is crucial for my ongoing PhD project on heritagisation of religion as an act of control. In this paper I wish to focus and explore the transitions back and forth between sacredness and heritage: Who decides about them, on what ground, who performs the transition, and what are the conditions attached to the new identity?
The starting point is the handling of sacred matter in Sweden, focusing medieval statues of saints and Virgin Mary after the Reformation to present time. After years of neglect and being hidden away in attics and sheds, these statues attracted a new interest by the early 20th century – though not from religious parts, but from antiquarians busy listing and materially caring for the national heritage. Being musealised for a century and inscribed in a historical, material and aesthetical context, the statues are now offered to the local parishes again, as a way to cut down storage costs. This offer however does not come without conditions: The statues should still be museum objects, and as such be guaranteed expensive optimum climate conditions, and they are not be touched or used in the way they were before heritagisation. Is this offer actually a Trojan horse, containing high costs but few benefits?
Applying theories on materiality, authenticity and the agency of display, I wish to initiate a discussion on possible consequences of and approaches to such transitions between holiness and heritage: from an antiquarian point of view as well as from a parish or devotional one.

Omne malum ab Aquilone. Images of the evil North in Early modern Italy and their impact on cross-... more Omne malum ab Aquilone. Images of the evil North in Early modern Italy and their impact on cross-religious encounters

Abstract for presentation at UGPS workshop Northern visions in the pre-‐modern era,
24-‐25 November 2014, Umeå, Sweden

by Dr Federico Barbierato, Assistant professor of History, Università di Verona and EMoDiR
research network (Early Modern religious Dissents and Radicalism, www.emodir.net), and
Helena Wangefelt Ström, PhD candidate of Museology, Umeå University, UGPS and EMoDiR
research network.

federico.barbierato@univr.it helena.wangefelt.strom@kultmed.umu.se

"Out of the north the evil will break forth on all the inhabitants of the land”
(Jeremiah 1:14)
”For disaster looms out of the north, even terrible destruction” (Jeremiah 6:1)

The image of the North as a bringer of evil and destruction, or, in fact, an evil place in itself, is supported by numerous verses in the Bible and occurs through history in various fields of human life. In an early modern context where Northern Europe was connected to the profound changes following the Reformation, and where Sweden was building an image of a successful great power – the land of the Polar Star and the Lion of the North – an opposite narrative of evilness and danger was simultaneously alive and widespread. This paper aims at bringing forward some of these concepts of the evil North that were part of popular beliefs in early modern Europe, and also the impact of these images in terms of actions and encounters between South and North – not least in the field of religion.

The Northern wind, even given personal names, was commonly feared as a destructive force spoiling harvests and caused medical problems. This might be one reason why, in Jacopo de Barbari’s map of Venice (1501), the Northern wind is the only one of the personalized putti head winds that is blindfolded. Diplomatic accounts and other archival sources from 17th century Italy describing the North paints a picture of a hostile, cold and uncivilized territory, where the question of religion (or lack thereof) is recurrent. The evilness of the North was highly relevant also when queen Christina moved into the Tower of the Winds in the Vatican in 1655, and the frescoe on the Northern wall stating ”Omne malum ad Aquilone” (All evil comes from the North) was hastily painted over.

Key note at the Religion, Body, Media and Heritage seminar at the Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam, ... more Key note at the Religion, Body, Media and Heritage seminar at the Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam, hosted by Prof. Irene Stengs and Prof. Birgit Meyer, 10 March 2023

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2023

Fil. dr. Helena Wangefelt Ström föreläser om när och hur religion blev kulturarv i 1600-talets It... more Fil. dr. Helena Wangefelt Ström föreläser om när och hur religion blev kulturarv i 1600-talets Italien. Hon berättar om sitt arbete med att undersöka utvecklingen från pilgrimsfärder till turism i bibliotek, arkiv, och museer i tidigmoderna Rom och Venedig.

Hur kom det sig att svenska 1600-talsresenärer gick på guidade visningar i reliksamlingar och i Vatikanen när de var i Italien? Och varför nämns religiösa fester och berömda reliker tillsammans med konstsamlingar och spektakulära gängbråk i en guidebok över 1600-talets Venedig?

Efter reformationen i början av 1500-talet blev det som betraktades som katolskt känsligt och icke önskvärt i Sverige. Samtidigt försökte den katolska kyrkan med Rom som centrum visa att den inte var slagen, utan tvärtom var stark och välmående: stora resurser satsades på konst och kultur, på spektakulära publika evenemang, och på upplivande (eller uppfinnande) av gamla traditioner som vandringar mellan Roms särskilda sju kyrkor och bön inför särskilda reliker.

Framväxten av det storskaliga samlandet med detaljerade inventarieförteckningar, särskilt inredda rum, och guidade visningar blev ett frö till senare tiders museer vilket började gro. En ny publik gjorde entré: kulturturister med guideböcker. Religionen som föremål, arkitektur, och levd praktik blev allt tydligare, även som en del av kulturutbudet och attraktionerna för icke-katolska besökare.

I den här föreläsningen tar Helena Wangefelt Ström oss med på en resa i ord och bild genom gränslandet mellan heligt och profant, mellan kult och kultur, i de dynamiska städerna Rom och Venedig under 1600-talet, och landar till sist i vår tid med frågan: Vad använder vi det sakrala kulturarvet till idag?

Seminar at Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici in Rome, 2020

Thursday, October 15 at 17.00, 2020 Saving souls or cultivating characters? Heritagization of rel... more Thursday, October 15 at 17.00, 2020
Saving souls or cultivating characters? Heritagization of religion in Early Modern Rome and Venice.
What happened when pious pilgrims had to share space with cultural tourists in the religious and political hot spots of 17th century Rome and Venice? During the aftermath of the Reformation and the prelude to the Grand Tour, the religious monuments, artifacts, and feasts in Rome and Venice were subject to a transforming agent, namely what we today may refer to as the tourist gaze. Religious practice and its material and immaterial expressions were increasingly seen, described, and used also by other visitors than devote pilgrims, and for cultural more than cultual purposes. This seminar will, through a selection of images and sources, explore and discuss the possible driving forces behind this transformation and the new narratives produced from it.

A discussion hosted by the Swedish History Museum in 2016, in connection to the exhibition Histor... more A discussion hosted by the Swedish History Museum in 2016, in connection to the exhibition History Unfolds (http://historiska.se/history-unfolds-en/).
Participants:
David Thurfjell, Professor in Religious studies at Södertörn university
James Webb, artist from South Africa
Maria Kjellsdotter Rydinger, minister in Church of Sweden
Helena Wangefelt Ström, PhD candidate in Museology at Umeå university

Inbjudan till föreläsning med samtal Att ställa ut religiösa föremål på museum Vad händer när rel... more Inbjudan till föreläsning med samtal Att ställa ut religiösa föremål på museum Vad händer när religion hamnar på museum, när sakralitet (om)definieras som kulturarv? Vilka värden tillförs, och vilka tas bort? Är det möjligt för ett föremål eller en plats att ha flera identiteter samtidigt, som konst, kulturarv, design, materialitet och helighet, och vad innebär det i så fall i museimiljön? Vem ställer ut, i vilket syfte, och för vem? I västvärlden hävdas ibland att kyrkorna är de nya museerna, och att museerna är de nya katedralerna-även som plats för andlig reflektion och religiös praktik. Kan en Buddha på ett museum användas både för konsthistoriskt studium och för religiös ritual, och får en madonnabild på ett museum kyssas av en troende katolik? I ett samhälle med ökad kulturell mångfald, och med en växande global kulturturism, är detta frågor som blir brännande aktuella, och som kräver reflektion.

Helena Wangefelt Ström är doktorand i museologi vid Umeå universitet och arbetar för närvarande med att slutföra sin avhandling om kulturarvifiering av religion, med titeln Lighting candles before a headless Jesus. Enchanted heritage, disenchanted sacredness, and the journey in between. Hon har tidigare arbetat på bland annat Skoklosters slott, på Sveriges Kristna Råd, och senast som kulturchef på Gotland.

Datum: Tisdag 12 december kl 13.00-15.00,
Plats: Röhsska museet, ingång huvudentré, Vasagatan 37
Föranmälan till: tanja.axelryd@kultur.goteborg.se senast 5 december
Föreläsningen ges inom ramen för arbetet med Röhsskas Östasiatiska utställning, där vi konstaterat att vi behöver mer kunskap och samtal kring hur museer behandlar andligt kulturarv och hur det kan uppfattas av besökare som berörs av andra aspekter av materialet, än de som är i fokus för utställningen. Exempelvis de buddhistiska föremålen i den Östasiatiska samlingen. Vi tror att flera inom museisektorn är berörda av ämnet och vill gärna ha en livlig diskussion kring det så vi välkomnar er alla att delta i föreläsningen.

http://historiska.se/history-unfolds-en/

http://www.frh-europe.org/events/frh-biannual-conference-vicenza-2016/

'Ett helgon i souvenirbutiken: Reliker som kult och kuriosa' Hur hamnade Heliga Birgitta på mu... more 'Ett helgon i souvenirbutiken: Reliker som kult och kuriosa'

Hur hamnade Heliga Birgitta på museum och S:ta Katarina av Siena i souvenirbutiken? Genom kristenhetens tvåtusenåriga historia har reliker efter martyrer och helgon spelat en väsentlig roll för kult, pilgrimsfärder, storpolitik, stadsbildning och turism - men även som museiföremål och souvenirer. Föreläsningen undersöker närmare relikernas status som lager på lager av död - eller av återfödelser till nytt liv, i relikskrin eller museimontrar.

How to Heritage Podcast, 2023

What does ’heritage’ mean in a traditional Italian context? And why is a more complex understandi... more What does ’heritage’ mean in a traditional Italian context? And why is a more complex understanding of the concept and its practice interesting to an early modern historian? In this episode, Professor Federico Barbierato from Verona University discusses the Italian perspective and entanglements between heritage and history with Helena Wangefelt Ström from the department of ALM in Uppsala. The podcast series How to Heritage is hosted by the Heritage Transformations network and CIRCUS at Uppsala University.

Allt du velat veta, 2019

Conversation with editor Fritte Fritzon on the history and multiple identities and uses of relic... more Conversation with editor Fritte Fritzon on the history and multiple identities and uses of relics (in Swedish)

The University of Maryland in College Park, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Bar-Ilan Unive... more The University of Maryland in College Park, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, the Italian Research Program of National Interest-PRIN 2015 The Long History of Anti-Semitism, and the International Research Group in Early Modern Religious Dissents & Radicalism – EMoDiR are planning an exciting series of three conferences during 2018–20 on the history of Jews in Italy during what is called the “long Renaissance.”

These meetings seek to explore forms of cooperation, imitation, exchange, alliance, and interaction between Jews and Christians in early modern Italy. The research project seeks to challenge the traditional paradigm that looks at the history of Christian-Jewish interactions only through the prism of anti-Semitism. We seek to demonstrate strategies of coexistence between different religions and cultures, strategies that helped to shape early modern European political and social history and were instrumental in defining what has been defined as modernity.

The first conference on “Sabbateanism in Italy and its Mediterranean Context” will be hosted in Rome on January 20-22, 2019. Participants will investigate the Sabbatean excitement and the movement’s activities in Italy. Others will address the aftermath of this messianic movement in later generations on the Peninsula. We hope to broaden the conversation in several ways, first through consideration of other millenarian preaching and excitement among Jews during the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries. Also participants have been encouraged to compare Sabbateanism with millenarian and heretical movements among Christians and Muslims in Italy, in the Mediterranean, and in Europe more widely. The conference will go beyond the enthusiasts themselves to describe the various types of reaction they elicited—whether celebration or suppression, passive disregard or active discipline

The second conference on “State Building and Minorities: Jews in Italy” will be held at the University of Maryland, College Park and at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, May 5–7, 2019 and will focus particularly on the social history of Italian Jews and their interaction with the Christian society. We want to investigate the reasons that lead Italian princes and republics to refuse the Spanish policy on Jews (expulsion), in favour of an ‘Italian way’ (concentration in ghettos) of structuring Christian-Jewish relations. Our aim is principally to insert the study of Jewish institutions, norms and behaviours into the broader context of Italian and Mediterranean history.

The third conference will be held in Jerusalem in January 2020 and deal with “Translations and Traditions: Mobilities of the Early-Modern Bible.” This meeting will move the focus to the intellectual and material culture of Italian Jews. We seek to cast light on the deep influence exercised by Jews in intellectual and material transformations that are considered typical of Italian Renaissance: philosophy and esotericism, printing and book culture, literature, music, artistic and non-artistic objects, figurative arts, housing and styles of living, religion and spirituality, trajectories of wealth and poverty, artistic patronage and antiquarianism.

The history of senses and emotions is an established and vibrant research field within cultural h... more The history of senses and emotions is an established and vibrant research field within cultural history which has brought new theoretical and methodological issues to the fore of historical and cultural analysis. The ISCH 2017 conference will promote a broad range of perspectives and themes in the history of senses and emotions, including both traditional analyses of representations and discourses and newer emphases on practices, materiality and historical phenomenology. We also want to discuss the even more radical return to bodies and materiality represented by the recent " affective turn ". Is this sharp difference between affect and emotion a false dichotomy as claimed by its critics or a pathway towards a deeper understanding of the embodied and physical nature of the agency and lived experience of senses and emotions, and therefore integral to a historical phenomenology? We take up this question and other reflections on the " affective turn " as key themes for the theoretical and methodological sessions at the ISCH 2017 conference.

RSA Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, 2022

Upcoming event, March/April 2022, Dublin.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars from history, art history, literature, mus... more The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars from history, art history, literature, museum studies and other disciplines to discuss the relation between gender, emotions and material culture from a critical perspective.

Emodir is pleased to invite you to attend the workshop TOWARDS A VOCABULARY of DISSENT For any in... more Emodir is pleased to invite you to attend the workshop TOWARDS A VOCABULARY of DISSENT For any information, please contact

Revolutions, Reformations, and their Impact on Religious Heritage through Time, Space, and Bounda... more Revolutions, Reformations, and their Impact on Religious Heritage through Time, Space, and Boundaries

This session aims at exploring how revolutions and reformations, understood as radical reorganizations of the political or religious structure of society, implicated a need to handle, control, and sometimes create historical narratives and material heritage. Whether religiously motivated or not, these movements without exceptions needed to approach and deal with a strong and not easily controlled force permeating society in all levels: religion, and its various expressions in rituals, traditions, buildings, materiality, and heritage.

In this session, we would like to highlight and discuss the impact societal revolutions have had, and still have today, on heritage connected to different religions across cultures and continents. What was and is the attitude towards the material and immaterial religious heritage when a drastic change is at hand, or is being commemorated, in a society? What consequences can be observed for religious heritage, in terms of – for example – material destruction, transvaluation, or oppression and oblivion? How is religious heritage used during revolutions and in the commemoration of revolutions? Can living religious practice be subject to a forced heritagisation in the context of a revolution?
We wish to address these questions not only from a historical aspect, but also from a contemporary point of view, where religious heritage is given a renewed and reinforced importance in a framework of global and multicultural tourism, religiously labelled terrorism, and increased migration, all of which bring on further challenges to rapid societal uprisings and dramatic changes. Does religion and religious heritage need to be domesticated more than other parts of society in times of revolution?

DEADLINE EXTENDED to 31 Dec 2017. Please submit your abstract to 2018achs@zju.edu.cn

Theme: Revolutions, Reformations, and the impact on Religious Heritage through Time, Space, and B... more Theme: Revolutions, Reformations, and the impact on Religious Heritage through Time, Space, and Boundaries

More than 100 proposals peer-reviewed and accepted by the scientific committee are open for paper... more More than 100 proposals peer-reviewed and accepted by the scientific committee are open for paper proposals. Under the theme "Heritage Across Borders", the 2018 ACHS conference will be the largest ever international conference in Asia dedicated to the topic of heritage. It has been conceived to connect international participants with local issues, and in so doing open up debates about the rural-urban, east-west, tangible-intangible and other familiar divides.

What happens when religion becomes heritage, when religious heritage is claimed by different grou... more What happens when religion becomes heritage, when religious heritage is claimed by different groups with different aims, or when history, heritage studies, and religion intersect? Heritage politics, memorialization (and curated oblivion), and demands for a de-colonialization of the museums are just a few examples of how the field of heritage in recent years has attracted new interest and debates-in society and in academia. Heritage studies scholars discuss how, by whom, and with what agenda heritage is produced from historical sources, often within anthropological or archaeological contexts. Museums as institutions are not only met with criticism for post-colonial narratives and demands on repatriation of artefacts, but claims are also being made on museums to take on a more active role in contemporary society debates, for example within ICOM (International Council of Museums). Given these premises, and regardless of etymology and terminology, we would here like to situate the production of heritage in a context of Early Modernity and religious dissent.

EMoDiR is an international research group focusing on the history of religious dissent and radica... more EMoDiR is an international research group focusing on the history of religious dissent and radicalism in Early Modern Europe (emodir.hypotheses.org). Since 2011, the group has organized panels at RSA annual conferences on practices and conceptual frameworks of religious conflict, heresy, and groups of radical dissents. The panels were characterized by a multiplicity of methodological and theoretical approaches. EMoDiR is now planning for the upcoming RSA conference in Philadelphia, and we invite contributions that analyze Early Modern religious history in dialogue with the newer historiographical trends, approaches that underscore the global and interconnected dimensions of the Early Modern world and the historiography about it. We are especially eager to receive proposals focusing on the theme of religious dissent in its relation to space and mobility. The vibrant field of enquiry generally known as "entangled history" has generated challenging methodological suggestions, and we hope to contribute to the mapping of the circulation of radical ideas and religious dissent, and to analyze the instability of the boundaries of faiths and cultures in an ever-changing political and religious geography. We welcome micro and macro, as well as intra-and extra-European, perspectives. We would welcome papers on a range of topics-from social analysis of concrete urban spaces to intellectual investigation of "conceptual" landscapes, as for example, in the case of Early Modern religious atlases. The analysis of borderlands and fluid spaces would be particularly welcome, whether on a global scale (including circulation of people, material objects, and ideas along maritime routes) or on a local level (border areas within cities, towns, and neighbourhoods). Among the diverse manifestations of religious dissent and non-conformity that might be mapped in relation to space and mobility we note:
- religious minorities, with reference to spatial segregation
- food regulations
- exile communities
- religious heterodoxy and social non-conformity (e.g. sexual and gender transgressions) in Early Modern cities
- religious "tourism" (travels to shrines and religiously charged locations, both for religious and cultural purposes)

We would also encourage papers exploring the new opportunities of research opened up for historians of the Early Modern period by technologies and digital humanities, especially in relation to the recent developments in Spatial Humanities and network analysis. Proposals should be submitted by June 30, 2018 by email to Stefano Villani (villani@umd.edu) and emodir@emodir.net with full name, current affiliation and email address; a paper title (15-word maximum), an abstract (150-word maximum), keywords, PhD completion date (past or expected), and a brief CV (150 words maximum).

EMoDiR (the Research Group on Early Modern Religious Dissents and Radicalism) is an international... more EMoDiR (the Research Group on Early Modern Religious Dissents and Radicalism) is an international research group dedicated to the study of religious differences, conflicts, and pluralism in early modern Europe. The group's aim is to examine the ways in which religious dissent was constructed in the early modern period as well the social and cultural practices of radical movements and religious minorities. For the next RSA Annual Conference (Toronto, 2019), we seek papers addressing the key-terms and categories that have been or are used to define early modern religious dissenting practices and beliefs. The aim of these panels is to deconstruct, reconstruct, and historically contextualize such commonly used categories as We also welcome papers about terms that were used in early modern times to describe heterodox religious experience (as for example Enthusiasm, Fanaticism, Sectarianism, Heresy). Each paper should investigate the emergence of a specific concept, its semantic contents, its 'labeling' uses and its changing meanings over times and places, taking into consideration an entangled historical approach (histoire croisée). Please email Stefano Villani (villani@umd.edu) and Helena Wangefelt Ström (helena.wangefelt.strom@umu.se) by August 10, 2018 with full name, current affiliation, and email address; a paper title (15-word maximum), an abstract (150-word maximum), keywords, PhD completion date (past or expected), and a brief CV (150 words maximum).