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Lena Liepe

Professor promoted
Department of Music and Art Faculty of Arts and Humanities
lenaliepelnuse
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Research

I am specialized in the study of the art and architecture of medieval Scandinavia within a European context, with particular emphasis on the theory, methodology and, of lately, also the historiography of medieval art historical scholarship. My current book project is an investigation of the role of relics in the liturgy and devotion of medieval Scandinavia: the first such study to be carried out on a comprehensive scale. Previous publications include monographs on the museal displays of medieval church art in Sweden 1847–1943 (2018), Icelandic illuminated manuscripts (2009), the conception of the body in Nordic medieval chuch art (2003, in Swedish), and medieval stone churches in Northern Norway (2001).
 
Academic degree: Ph.D. / Dr.phil. in Art History, University of Lund, Sweden, 1995
 
Academic employments
• 2018–: Professor of Art History, Department of Music and Art, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden
• 2008–2018: Professor of Art History, Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo, Norway
• 2003–2007: Professor of Art History, Faculty of Humanities, University of Tromsø, Norway
• 1996–2003: Associate Professor of Art History, Faculty of Humanities, University of Tromsø, Norway

Scholarly awards
• 2019: the Gad Rausing Prize for prominent Nordic research, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy for Letters, History and Antiquities
• 2016:The Jarl Gallén Prize for Research on the History of Northern Europe, awarded by CENS – University of Helsinki, the Glossa Society for the Study of the Middle Ages, The Finland Historical Society, and the Thure Gallén Foundation

 
Academic memberships
• The Norwegian Academy for Science and Letters
• The Society for Research in the Humanities and Theology, Lund University
 
I am currently an Associate of the Board of the International Centre of Medieval Art (ICMA). I have served two terms (2009–2016) as Norwegian representative of CIHA:Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art.
 
Ongoing projects
• Mapping Lived Religion: Medieval Cults of Saints in Sweden and Finland financed by the Swedish Research Council (2019–2023)
• Relics and Relic Use in Medieval Scandinavia (2010–2019)
 
Scholarly collaborations and assignments
• 2018–2021: Associate of the Board of the International Centre of Medieval Art (ICMA)
• Member of the editorial board of the journal Bebyggelsehistorisk Tidskrift (Journal for the History of Architecture and Building)
• Member of the editorial board of the journal Transfiguration. Nordisk tidsskrift for kunst og kristendom, Copenhagen (Transfiguration. Nordic Journal for Art and Christianity)
• Member of the board of the Centre for Advanced Study, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (2014–2018)
• 2009–2016: Norwegian representative in the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art
• Member of the editorial board for the journal Collegium Medievale. Interdisciplinary Journal of Medieval Research (2008–2013)
• Member of the editorial board of the journal Kunst og Kultur (Art and Culture, 2006–2013)
• One of four leaders of the interdisciplinary project Creating the New North. Manifestation of Central Power in the North AD 1000–1600, in collaboration with Dept of History and Dept. of Archaeology, University of Tromsoe (2005–2007)
• Participation in a Nordic interdisciplinary network on Icelandic literary and book culture during the Middle Ages: Reykholt and European literacy, financed by NordForsk (2001–2006)

Liepe Case
Recently published: A Case for the Middle Ages. The Public Display of Medieval Church Art in Sweden, 1847–1943 (2018) – https://vitterhetsakad.bokorder.se/sv-se/article/3483/a-case-for-the-middle-ages

Publications

Article in journal (Refereed)

Book (Refereed)

Chapter in book (Refereed)

Conference proceedings (editor) (Refereed)

Article in journal (Other academic)

Conference paper (Other academic)

Book (Other academic)

Chapter in book (Other academic)

Doctoral thesis, monograph (Other academic)

Article in journal (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.))

Presentations at seminars and conferences (in English)

• From the sanctuary to the museum: Displaying the sacred. University of Helsinki Spring School for PhD candidates 2017.03.20–24
Lectures: “Displaying the Sacred (1): The Sanctuary”, and “Displaying the Sacred (2): The Museum”

• Changing Senses of Sacrality. Objects, Beliefs and Performances from the Medieval to the Early Modern Era, org. Thure Galléns Stiftelse, Glossa. The Society for Medieval Studies in Finland, Centre for Nordic Studies at the Faculty of Humanitis, University of Helsinki, and Swedish Historical Society in Finland, Helsingfors 2016.12.01–02.
Keynote: “Arm-in-arm. The meaning-making of relics and reliquaries from the Middle Ages to the present”
 
• The Cult of Saints in the Archdiocese of Niðaróss and its European Context, org. Dept. for Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo 2016.10.13–14
Paper: “To wear a piece of sanctity around one’s neck. Relic jewellery and the role of privately owned relics in medieval devotion”
 
• Spiritual and Material Economies 1000–1350: Time, Devotion and Reform, org. The Church and Money Project, University of Oslo and Durham University, Durham 2016.06.08–10
Paper: “Sacred goods: Dealing with relics in the Scandinavian Middle Ages”
 
• Archaeology of the Object: Conservation, Material Culture and the Creation of Historical Knowledge for Pre-reformation Church Inventories,org. “After the Black Death: Painting and Polychrome Sculpture in Norway” Project, Oslo 2014.10.15–17
Paper: “The material turn: A dispatch from the frontlines of medievalist art history”
 
• Exhibition Materialities, org. Anders Ekström University of Uppsala–Brita Brenna, IKOS/University of Oslo–Taina Syrjämaa, Turku Universitet, in collaboration with Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik/Lehrstuhl für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Humbold Universität, Berlin; funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, 2014.06.10–11
Paper: “The Materialistic Turn”
 
• Workshop Boundaries in Pre-Modern Studies, org. Umeå Group for Premodern Studies, Umeå University 2013.11.14–15
Keynote: “From cultural history to art history – and back again? The epistemology of images in medievalist scholarship: in the past, in the present, and in the future”
 
• The Nordic Spirit Symposium. After the Vikings – Before the Reformation, org. Scandinavian American Cultural and Historical Foundation, Thousand Oaks, Californien, 2012.02.10–11
Paper: “The Late Medieval Church Interior: The Room and Its Holy Images”
 
• Painting and Polychrome Sculpture, 1100–1600. Interpretation, material histories and conservation, org. Conservation Studies, University of Oslo, 2010.11.26–27
Paper: “Findings of relics in medieval wooden statues”
 
• Workshop The Power of the Book. Medial Approaches to Medieval Nordic Legal Manuscripts, org. Nordeuropa-Institut, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2010.08.19–20
Paper: “Text and Images in Norwegian and Icelandic 14th Century Law Books” (together w. Karl G. Johansson, ILN)
 
• Locus Celebris: The Church, Monastery and Manor of Dalby, org. Centre for the Study of Denmark at the University of Lund, 2010.04.24–27
Paper: “Byzantium and Dalby: a not-so-close encounter of the third kind”
 
• New Directions in Medieval Scandinavian Studies, org. Fordham University, New York, 2010.03.27–28
Paper: “‘Byzantios’ reconsidered”
 
• The Manuscript Triangle. France–England–Scandinavia 1100–1300. A workshop on medieval manuscripts and book fragments in Nordic collections, org. Center for Medieval Studies, Bergen, 2009.11.04–06
Paper: “Scandinavian law books with minor initials”
 
• Art, Memory, and Patronage: Visual Culture in the Baltic Sea Region at the Time of Bernt Notke, org. Homburger Gespräche, Tallinn 2009.09.10–12 
Paper: “The Multimateriality of Bernt Notke’s St. George and the Dragon”
 
• Images, Ritual, and Daily Life. International Workshop, Krems an der Donau, 2008.12.01–02, org. Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit / Austrian Academy of Sciences
Paper: “The Rogslösa Door”
 
• Masculinity and the Medieval North, Gothenburg 2008.10.18–19
Paper: “The Male Body in Nordic Medieval Art”
 
• 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, West Michigan University, Kalamazoo, 2007.05.10–13
Paper: “Illuminations in Icelandic 14th Century Law Books”
 
• Use and Reuse of Medieval Art and Architecture, Center for Studies of the Viking Age and the Nordic Middle Ages, University of Oslo 2004.11.19–20
Paper: “Use and reuse as aspects in art historical analysis”.
 
• Border Poetics? A Comparative Perspective, org. Faculty of Humanities, University of Tromsø, 2004.11.11–13
Paper: “The ‘word vomiter’ of Rómverjasaga: transgressing of text/image-division in an Icelandic medieval manuscript”.
 
• The Songs of Ossian. Symposium in honour of Professor Bo Ossian Lindberg, org. Department for Art History, Åbo Academy 2002.01.25–27
Paper: “The Kalanti reredos: An Exegesis in Bodily Categories”.
 
• Body, Culture, Religion, org. Department of Theology, Lund University 2001.10.05–06
Paper: “The Iconography of Body and Gender in Nordic Medieval Art”.
 
• 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo Mich., USA 2001.05.03–06
Paper: “Body and Space in the Frontal from Ølst”.
 
• De-Constructing Agency: The Question of Representation, org. Department of History, University of Tromsø 2000.05.05–06
Paper: “The Radical Alterity of the Past. On the Representation of Sexuality in Medieval Imagery”.
 
• History and Images, org. the research program “Den billedskabte virkelighed”, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen 1999.05.31–06.03
Paper: “On the Epistemology of Images”.
 
• Figur und Raum. Mittelalterliche Holzbildwerke in ihrem historischen und kunstgeographischen Kontext, org. Kunsthistorisches Institut der Universität Kiel, Selent, 1992.10.07–10
Paper: “The Törringe Master and his School. Ten Crucifixes in New Light”.

 

Organizer of international conferences, workshops and Ph.D.courses
 
• Organizer (together with Noëlle Streeton, University of Oslo) of session ”Curatorial Discourses on Medieval Art, Past and Present”, 54. International Congress for Medieval Studies, West Michigan University, Kalamazoo, 2019.05.09–12
 
• Scholarly responsibility for planning and content of Nordic workshop on relic research, Helsinki, 2019.04.01–03, org. Thure Gallén foundation, Centre for the Nordic Studies at the University of Helsinki, Swedish Historical Society in Finland, and Glossa Society for Medieval Studies in Finland.
 
• Scholarly responsibility for planning of and teaching at Ph.D. course From the sanctuary to the museum: Displaying the sacred, University of Helsinki Spring School for PhD candidates 2017.03.20–24:, org. Thure Gallén foundation, Centre for the Nordic Studies at the University of Helsinki, Swedish Historical Society in Finland, and Glossa Society for Medieval Studies in Finland
 
• Organizer of Annual Research Seminar in Art History 2015: Matter and materiality in the study of medieval art, Section for Art History, University of Oslo 2015.12.-04–05
 
• Member of the organizational committe of Stave Churches and Their Decoration. Symposium in Honour of the 70th Birthday of Prof. Em. Erla Bergendahl Hohler, The Norwegian Academy for Science and Letters 2007.12.01