Publikationen

Medieval memoria - the commemoration of the dead - was both a form of collective memory and a social practice present in every sphere of life. It shaped identities and constituted groups, and thus the study of commemorative practices can tell us a great deal about medieval communities. This study shows the importance of memoria as a form of collective memory for different groups and institutions: city government and guilds, the Teutonic Order, bishops and cathedral chapters, and monastic communities, in late medieval Livonia (present-day Latvia and Estonia).

Book series: Memoria and Remembrance practices, 5

Place: publisher, year: Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2023

ISBN: 978-2-503-59119-3 (Hardback)

ISBN: 978-2-503-59120-9 (E-Book)

The interdisciplinary study investigates the relationship between Norse and Saami peoples in the medieval period and focuses on the multifaceted portrayal of Saami peoples in medieval texts. The investigative analysis is anchored in postcolonial methodologies and argues for the inherent need to decolonise the medieval source-material as well as recent historiography. This is achieved by presenting the historiographic and political background of research into Norse-Saami relations, before introducing an overview of textual sources discussing Saami peoples from the classical period to the late 1400s, an analysis of the textual motifs associated with the Saami in medieval literature (their relevance and prevalence), geo-political affairs, trading relations, personal relations and Saami presence in the south. By using decolonising tools to read Norse-Saami relations in medieval texts, influenced by archaeological material and postcolonial frameworks, the study challenges lingering colonial assumptions about the role of the Saami in Norse society. The current research episteme is re-adjusted to offer alternative readings of Saami characters and emphasis is put on agency, fluidity and the dynamic realities of the Saami medieval pasts.

Book series: Religious Minorities in the North, Vol. 5

Place: publisher, year: Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023

ISBN: 9783110784305 (E-Book)

ISBN: 9783110784169 (gebunden)

The significance of religion for the development of modern racist antisemitism is a much debated topic in the study of Jewish-Christian relations. This book, the first study on antisemitism in nineteenth-century Sweden, provides new insights into the debate from the specific case of a country in which religious homogeneity was the considered ideal long into the modern era.
Between 1800 and 1900, approximately 150 books and pamphlets were printed in Sweden on the subject of Judaism and Jews. About one third comprised of translations mostly from German, but to a lesser extent also from French and English. Two thirds were Swedish originals, covering all genres and topics, but with a majority on religious topics: conversion, supersessionism, and accusations of deicide and bloodlust. The latter stem from the vastly popular medieval legends of Ahasverus, Pilate, and Judas which were printed in only slightly adapted forms and accompanied by medieval texts connecting these apocryphal figures to contemporary Jews, ascribing them a physical, essential, and biological coherence and continuity – a specific Jewish temporality shaped in medieval passion piety, which remained functional and intelligible in the modern period.
Relying on medieval models and their combination of religious and racist imagery, nineteenth-century debates were informed by a comprehensive and mostly negative "knowledge" about Jews.

Book series: Religious Minorities in the North, Vol. 3

Place: publisher, year: Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021

ISBN: 9783110757408 (E-Book)

ISBN:9783110673432 (gebunden)

Is research on antisemitism even necessary in countries with a relatively small Jewish population? Absolutely, as this volume shows. Compared to other countries, research on antisemitism in the Nordic countries (Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) is marginalized at an institutional and staffing level, especially as far as antisemitism beyond German fascism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust is concerned. Furthermore, compared to scholarship on other prejudices and minority groups, issues concerning Jews and anti-Jewish stereotypes remain relatively underresearched in Scandinavia – even though antisemitic stereotypes have been present and flourishing in the North ever since the arrival of Christianity, and long before the arrival of the first Jewish communities.
This volume aims to help bring the study of antisemitism to the fore, from the medieval period to the present day. Contributors from all the Nordic countries describe the status of as well as the challenges and desiderata for the study of antisemitism in their respective countries.

Book series: Religious Minorities in the North, Vol. 1

Place: publisher, year: Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019

ISBN: 9783110634822 (E-Book)

ISBN: 9783110631937 (gebunden)

Der Erste Weltkrieg stellte nicht nur ein weltweites Ereignis, sondern gleichzeitig auch ein globales Medienereignis von bis dahin ungekannten Ausmaßen dar. Modernisierung, Internationalisierung und Konvergenz der Medien wurden ebenso durch den Krieg befördert wie die Ausbildung einer zielgerichteten Medienpropaganda. Besonders sichtbar wird dies am Beispiel der neutralen Staaten, in denen man zur Information über den Krieg auf die Medienberichterstattung angewiesen war. °°Arne Segelke zeigt am Beispiel Dänemarks, wie sich die propagandistischen Bemühungen der Kriegsparteien auf das gesamte Mediensystem eines neutralen Landes erstreckten und dieses in Teilen nachhaltig und langfristig beeinflussten. Dabei wird auch deutlich, wie genau die britischen und deutschen Propagandisten sich gegenseitig beobachteten und auf die Aktivitäten der jeweils anderen Seite reagierten. Dieses Konkurrenzverhältnis führte einerseits zu neuen Ansätzen und Methoden der Propaganda, andererseits zu Narrativen und Darstellungsweisen des Krieges, die unsere Sichtweise auf diesen bis heute prägen.

Place: publisher, year: Franz-Steiner-Verlag: Stuttgart, 2019

ISBN: 978-3-8305-3884-4 (gebunden)

ISBN:978-3-8305-4046-5 (E-Book)

This book presents a fresh approach to the question of the historical continuities and discontinuities of Jew-hatred, juxtaposing chapters dealing with the same phenomenon – one in the pre-modern, one in the modern period. How do the circumstances of interreligious violence differ in pre-Reformation Europe, the modern Muslim world, and the modern Western world? In addition to the diachronic comparison, most chapters deal with the significance of religion for the formation of anti-Jewish stereotypes. The direct dialogue of small-scale studies bridging the chronological gap brings out important nuances: anti-Zionist texts appropriating medieval ritual murder accusations; modern-day pogroms triggered by contemporary events but fuelled by medieval prejudices; and contemporary stickers drawing upon long-inherited knowledge about what a "Jew" looks like. These interconnections, however, differ from the often-assumed straightforward continuities between medieval and modern anti-Jewish hatred. The book brings together many of the most distinguished scholars of this field, creating a unique dialogue between historical periods and academic disciplines.

Book series: Memoria and Remembrance practices, 5

Place: publisher, year: New York/Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-138-63088-8 (Hardback, 2018)

ISBN: 978-0-367-59304-9 (Paperback, 2020)

ISBN: 978-1-351-12082-1 (E-Book)