The Sector Committee for Research on Premodernity

On 8 December 2005, the board of directors of Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) resolved to establish a Sector Committee for Research on Premodernity. The foundation’s Chairperson, Professor Eva Östberg, Director Dan Brändström, and then Research Secretary, Kjell Blückert, were commissioned to develop such a committee and to appoint board members. This work took place during the spring of 2006 and, in August, a conference was held at the Sigtuna Foundation with approximately 50 of Sweden’s active researchers in Premodern History to discuss themes and work areas for the committee. The sector committee has now begun its work. There follows below an extract from the basis for the board’s decision.

“At regular intervals, RJ establishes sector committees to focus on questions that do not appear to have been studied sufficiently in research or where new ideas may be needed. There are grounds for considering a sector committee paying particular attention to research in humanities and religion, in areas having interesting research themes relevant to several disciplines, where there are grounds for saving/strengthening scientific competency. It is important not to lose the knowledge that also enables us to critically review the present over a long-term historical perspective.

For several years, humanists have articulated misgivings that brief research training, in combination with the difficulty doctoral students are faced with when it comes to reading archive materials and documents written in foreign languages, tends to influence the selection of topics, encouraging researchers away from material from earlier periods and towards current and more easily accessible sources. It is evident that, in recent years, it has become increasingly unusual to find PhD students and younger post-doctoral researchers in topics such as History, Nordic Languages and the History of Literature who have decided to specialise in such areas as the circumstances of these subjects during the Middle Ages. Inadequate previous knowledge in Classical Languages (as well as Modern Languages other than English) makes it difficult to study Antiquity or to trace traditions from Antiquity, through the Middle Ages and into the Early Modern Period.

At the same time, it is evident that European and other international research have not at all cut their connection with Classical, Medieval and Early Modern thinking in the same way. A famous researcher of the French Annales tradition, Georges Duby, argues that Europe’s cultural heritage in particular is comprised of ideas and structures from the Middle Ages: Christianised versions of ancient thoughts, villages and cities, churches and universities as institutions, Roman law. Another world-renowned Medieval researcher, Aron Gurevic, argues that early European history cannot be understood without including the patterns found in the Nordic countries. He has obtained excellent results regarding the mentality of medieval people by just this process of beginning his research in the peripheries, in the north and east, rather than employing the traditional focus on France, England and Germany. In short, it is crucial that we do not lose our competence in the basic research of humanist and religious sciences concerning Scandinavian conditions in the Premodern Period, at the same time as we should place it in a comparative European perspective.

Board members

Managing Director Dr Göran Blomqvist, PhD, RJ (Chairperson)
Professor Anders Andrén, Archaeology, Stockholm University
Professor Jan von Bonsdorff, History of Art, Uppsala University
Senior Lecturer Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback, Philosophy, Södertörn University
Professor Anders Cullhed, History of Literature, Stockholm University
Senior Lecturer Mohammad Fazlhashemi, History of Ideas, Umeå University
Professor Eva-Carin Gerö, Greek, Stockholm University
Professor Janken Myrdal, Agricultural History, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Professor Catharina Raudvere, History of Religion, University of Copenhagen
Professor Eva Rystedt, Ancient Culture and Society, Lund University
Professor Barbro Santillo Frizell, Ancient Culture and Society, CEO of the Swedish Institute in Rome
Professor Solfrid Söderlind, History of Art, Director, Sweden’s National Museum of Fine Arts
Professor Henrik Williams, Nordic Languages, Uppsala University
Professor Eva Österberg, History, Lund University
Britta Lövgren, PhD, Research Secretary RJ (Secretary)

Last updated 26 March 2009