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I ett par decennier har universitet, forskningsfinansiärer och forskare själva uppmuntrat till tvärvetenskapligt samarbete. Men parallellt med att tvärvetenskapliga satsningar görs på svenska lärosäten så filtreras dessa bort i ett trubbigt byråkratiskt system, med följden att humanistiskt präglad tvärvetenskap idag osynliggörs i officiell forskningsstatistik.

Svenska lärosäten genomgår en naturvetenskapligt präglad omställning till öppen tillgång till forskningsdata, på engelska kallad ”open data”. Senast 2026 ska insamlat forskningsmaterial göras fritt tillgängligt för allmänheten. Detta skapar särskilda utmaningar för humaniora. Ska omställningen till öppen data betalas med humanisters forskningstid?

Presidentvalet i USA har beskrivits som ett ödesval för den amerikanska demokratin. Det är ett val om konkreta politiska frågor, såsom ekonomi, socialförsäkringar och aborträtt. Men partikonventen för Demokraterna och Republikanerna visade att USA också står inför ett annat val i november – frågan om vad som definierar USA och vem som hör hemma i nationens gemenskap.

Political identification has been shown to influence Americans' perception of social reality and notions of American identity (Marietta & Barker 2019; Dawkins & Hanson 2022), but less is known about how partisan identity affects perceptions of personal pasts. This includes one of the most profound dimensions of American identity: individual ancestry and ethno-racial heritage. In this project, we explore how white ethnic identity is being reshaped through political polarization in the contemporary United States. More specifically, we look at the ways in which political identity influences Americans’ ideas about their ethnic heritage, and vice- versa, through a case study of Swedish Americans in Minnesota.

UKÄ och SCB har publicerat en reviderad standard för indelning av forskningsämnen i Sverige. Det kommer nu finnas en kategori för tvärvetenskap inom humaniora. Men frågan återstår hur väl kartan reflekterar verkligheten.

This chapter deals with contextualization when writing cross-border history, and the relation between contextualization and methodological nationalism. Grounded in the author’s own research on twentieth-century commemorations of Swedish settlement in North America, and the experience of rewriting a Swedish dissertation into a book published in the United States, the chapter addresses questions relating both to the researching and writing of history. The “transnational turn” has highlighted the need to consider contextualization as an integral aspect of historical interpretation. What contexts that are selected and given explanatory value is central to the history that researchers choose to convey. If we wish to move beyond national frameworks of interpretations—for example, by giving primacy to national contexts—it is important to be mindful of how we contextualize. The chapter argues for the benefit of an actor-centered approach to transnational history, and for the active use of contextualization as an analytical tool, where contexts are “weaved” in and out of the study. Beyond the empirical investigation and interpretative operation, the search for new empirical leads and new interpretative contexts is also associated with one's own intellectual and spatial mobility. The writing of transnational history does not only entail studying a research object that crosses borders; it can also mean that the researcher, on some level, likewise will have to act and work across borders. A further aspect of this is to consider what contexts that may be of relevance as you seek to make your results and narratives comprehensible to heterogenous audiences.

Genealogy is one of the most popular sociocultural pursuits in modern U.S. history. During recent decades, scholars of the history of American genealogy and family history have forwarded an argument that its development since the 19th century is characterized by “democratization”. Surveying the scholarship, this article critically examines what that argument really means, what it unveils about historical change, and what it does not adequately recognize. The article argues that “democratization” is inadequate for making precise explanations about historical causes, causalities, and consequences. As an alternative to the democratization argument, it is suggested that research on the history of American genealogy should be inspired by recent studies of contemporary genealogy by sociologists, anthropologists, and cultural geographers, as well as by philosophical studies on the human longing for ancestry. By doing so, it becomes possible to engage with the crucial question of power in the historical inquiry. This approach is explored through the genealogical work of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Rather than looking at genealogy through the lens of grassroots individuals, we need to acknowledge the connection between personal longing for ancestry and the ways in which powerful organizations, institutions, media, and businesses have sought to capitalize on this longing

Review of Mark Jensen (book and lyrics), Gary Rue (lyrics and musical arrangements), Tyler Michaels King (director), Brian Pekol (musical direction). Runestone! A Rock Musical. St. Paul, MN: History Theater, May 7–29, 2022. 2 hours, 19 minutes. (Online stream), and Gordon Campbell. Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth. Oxford: Ox- ford University Press, 2021. 247 pages, illustrations. ISBN: 978-0198861553.

This article investigates the modern history of genealogy through the lens of keyword indexes – an essential resource for access to genealogical information. Empirically, the article studies the role of indexes in Euro-American genealogy from the nineteenth century to today. Particular attention is paid to the 1960s–2010s, when genealogy changed through growing popular engagement, new technologies, rising and falling academic interest, and increased commercialisation. Focusing on a set of grassroots cases from Sweden that have been crucial to the subfield of Swedish-American genealogy, the article explores the work of local Swedish heritage societies and the dream of empirical ‘totality’; the cooperation between heritage societies and academic historians; the impact of microfilm and digital technologies in creating a sense of information overload; the economy of unpaid volunteer and state-subsidised labour; and how paper-based indexes, created largely through grassroots initiatives, have been transformed into digital commodities on an international genealogical market. While this is an important enquiry for understanding the history of genealogy – one of the most widespread popular pursuits in modern history – it also addresses the intricate relations between grassroots initiatives, academic research, and capitalism in modern archive history.

This article adopts a media historical approach to studying the modern history of genealogy, suggesting an alternative to both the dominant methodologies and periodization of the field. Empirically, it focuses on the ways in which correspondence was adopted as a tool for long- distance research by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1910–45, examining in particular its research networks in Sweden.The article demonstrates that letter-writing was a research method dependent on record accessibility and interpersonal reliability. It also had the benefit of becoming its own resource, sustaining its relevance into the twenty-first century.

Studies of Swedish American history and identity have largely been confined to separate disciplines, such as history, literature, or politics. In Swedish–American Borderlands, this collection edited by Dag Blanck and Adam Hjorthén seeks to reconceptualize and redefine the field of Swedish–American relations by reviewing more complex cultural, social, and economic exchanges and interactions that take a broader approach to the international relationship—ultimately offering an alternative way of studying the history of transatlantic relations. Swedish–American Borderlands studies connections and contacts between Sweden and the United States from the seventeenth century to today, exploring how movements of people have informed the circulation of knowledge and ideas between the two countries. The volume brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines within the humanities and social sciences to investigate multiple transcultural exchanges between Sweden and the United States. Rather than concentrating on one-way processes or specific national contexts, Swedish–American Borderlands adopts the concept of borderlands to examine contacts, crossings, and convergences between the nations, featuring specific case studies of topics like jazz, architecture, design, genealogy, and more. By placing interactions, entanglements, and cross-border relations at the center of the analysis,Swedish–American Borderlands seeks to bridge disciplinary divides, joining a diverse set of scholars and scholarship in writing an innovative history of Swedish–American relations to produce new understandings of what we perceive as Swedish, American, and Swedish American. Contributors: Philip J. Anderson, North Park U; Jennifer Eastman Attebery, Idaho State U; Marie Bennedahl, Linnaeus U; Ulf Jonas Björk, Indiana U–Indianapolis; Thomas J. Brown, U of South Carolina; Margaret E. Farrar, John Carroll U; Charlotta Forss, Stockholm U; Gunlög Fur, Linnaeus U; Karen V. Hansen, Brandeis U; Angela

The article explores challenges and possibilities of curriculum development in American Studies in Sweden, a discipline that does not yet exist as a national degree-awarding subject. The aim is to investigate how advanced level learning in American Studies can be designed in relation to student progression. The backdrop to this problem is “the Swedish-American paradox”—the fact the many Swedish students have substantial prior experiences and knowledges about the United States, yet where the opportunities for academic education about North America are rather limited. While American Studies is a common discipline at North American and European universities, it does not have a strong foothold in Sweden. The article discusses the disciplinary history and educational tradition within American Studies, focusing on its interdisciplinarity. It then discusses how interdisciplinarity have been brought into American Studies curricula internationally, and how this sits within the framework of the Swedish Higher Education Ordinance. The American Studies case is juxtaposed to similar fields through a review of area studies MA programs in Sweden. The article ends with an exploration of the ways in which interdisciplinarity can be adopted as a learning outcome in relation to the challenge of student progression in Sweden.

Studies of Swedish American history and identity have largely been confined to separate disciplines, such as history, literature, or politics. In Swedish–American Borderlands, this collection edited by Dag Blanck and Adam Hjorthén seeks to reconceptualize and redefine the field of Swedish–American relations by reviewing more complex cultural, social, and economic exchanges and interactions that take a broader approach to the international relationship—ultimately offering an alternative way of studying the history of transatlantic relations. Swedish–American Borderlands studies connections and contacts between Sweden and the United States from the seventeenth century to today, exploring how movements of people have informed the circulation of knowledge and ideas between the two countries. The volume brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines within the humanities and social sciences to investigate multiple transcultural exchanges between Sweden and the United States. Rather than concentrating on one-way processes or specific national contexts, Swedish–American Borderlands adopts the concept of borderlands to examine contacts, crossings, and convergences between the nations, featuring specific case studies of topics like jazz, architecture, design, genealogy, and more. By placing interactions, entanglements, and cross-border relations at the center of the analysis,Swedish–American Borderlands seeks to bridge disciplinary divides, joining a diverse set of scholars and scholarship in writing an innovative history of Swedish–American relations to produce new understandings of what we perceive as Swedish, American, and Swedish American.

This article explores the meanings and significances of memories of settler histories in transatlantic relations. Looking specifically at the medium of monuments, it asks what functions they have played, and continue to play, in relations between the United States and certain European countries. The first section of the article offers an anatomy of transatlantic monuments, outlining its key characteristics through a discussion of some prominent examples that range from Christopher Columbus to Leif Eriksson and the Plymouth Colony. In the second section, this typology is further explored through an in-depth analysis of the 1938 monument of the New Sweden colony (1638–1655) designed by Swedish sculptor Carl Milles. The third section deals with memory and ethics, focusing on the analytical consequences and contemporary ramifications of applying a transatlantic perspective on monuments of settler histories. The article argues that a framing of memories of European settlement in America as transatlantic encourages us to rethink its meanings and functions, but also to reappraise questions of responsibility. As monuments of settlement appear to be politically relevant in Euro-American relations, we need to address consequential questions of inclusion, authority, accountability, and agency, that are central to an ethics of memory in transnational settings.

This article examines the history of ancestral tourism and its development as a form of cultural diplomacy between 1945 and 1966. The phenomenon often referred to as 'roots tourism' has during the last decades increased in popularity, especially in Old World countries that historically have sent large numbers of people to North America. While previous scholarship has focused on its existential dimensions and its relation to the twenty-first century tourism and heritage economies, this article looks at how ancestral tourism grew out of European attempts at expanding the tourism industry after 1945. It studies the international spread of 'person-to-person' programs that sought to turn travelers into 'ambassadors', and the subsequent transformation of such initiatives into 'homecoming' campaigns through notions of co-descent, targeting Americans of European descent. By exploring the case of the 1966 Homecoming Year campaign in Sweden, the article shows that the attraction of ancestral tourism was grounded in its ability to combine economic and political incentives articulated in the Marshall Plan. It developed out of a liberal-democratic ideology that vested individual travelers with diplomatic agency. In the process, European tourist agencies calcified the notion that ancestral tourism served not only individual experiences, but also national economies and international relations.