Sara Ellis Nilsson
researcher, director of studiesI am a medievalist educated in Canada (University of British Columbia), the UK (University of Glasgow and University of York), and Sweden (University of Gothenburg). I have a Ph.D. in (medieval) history from the University of Gothenburg. My dissertation focuses on the emergence of new cults of local Danish and Swedish saints in the early medieval period and their connection to the Christianization of the region. My research interests are interdisciplinary and include cultural heritage, cultural history, material culture, hagiography/liturgy, and digital humanities.
I have been employed as a university lecturer at the University of Gothenburg, Malmö University, and Lund University. In addition, I have been a visiting lecturer at the University of the Highlands and Islands (Orkney) and a research fellow at Stanford University. Since February 2019, I have been working as a Researcher in Nordic Medieval History at the Department of Cultural Sciences. From the Spring Term 2020, I am the Director of Studies for History.
I am also the Online Editor for Scandia: Tidskrift för historisk forskning.
Teaching
In the Autumn Term 2020, I will be lecturing on "Digital History" for the Master Programme in Digital Humanities.
Previously, I have taught a variety of courses on all levels from survey courses on global history from 10,000 BCE to 1789 CE, to teacher training courses (history didactics), medieval history, the cults of saints as cultural history, historical theory and method, and cultural heritage studies, as well as supervised theses at both the BA and MA level.
Research
I am the project leader of the Swedish Research Council funded, 'digitisation and accessibility of cultural heritage collections' (DIGARV) project, Mapping Lived Religion: Medieval Cults of Saints in Sweden and Finland. The project runs from 2019-2024. As part of this project, I will be studying the development of special feast days, their role in lived religion, and their connection to lay piety.
Since defending my doctoral thesis, I have written about the construction of sanctity as reflected in the lives of Scandinavian women; the portrayal of non-holy bishops in Scandinavian hagiography and how this reflects the formation of textual networks and communities; and the inclusion of travel narratives and companions in medieval hagiography. In addition to the above research project, I study the communication of the past and the use of history. In particular, I examine how objects and their reconstructions are used by different actors in the creation of narratives about the past. My current case study involves how viking ships and their reconstructions are used in the formation of narratives and the transmission of knowledge in museum contexts.
Commissions
Director of Studies for History
Publications
Chapter in book (Refereed)
- Ellis Nilsson, S. (2020). Promoting or Rejecting the Saints : The Representation of Non-Saintly Bishops in medieval Scandinavian Hagiography. Episcopal Power and Personality in Medieval Europe, 900-1480. Turnhout, Brepols. 181-199.
- Ellis Nilsson, S. (2019). Forming and Fashioning Early Scandinavian Sanctity : Liturgy and its narrative context. Heiligkeiten : Konstruktionen, Funtionen und Transfer von Heiligkeitskonzepten im europäischen Früh- und Hochmittelalter . Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag. 73-87.
- Ellis Nilsson, S. (2019). 'Not all those who wander are lost' : Saintly Travellers and their Companions in medieval Scandinavia. Travel, Pilgrimage and Social Interaction from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. London, Routledge. 226-247.
Chapter in book (Other academic)
- Ellis Nilsson, S. (2020). Digital history : digitizing and communicating the past: a case study. Doing digital humanities : concepts, approaches, cases. Växjö, Linnaeus University Press. 219-239.
Article, book review (Other academic)
- Ellis Nilsson, S. (2020). Konsten att förmedla historia : En tvärvetenskaplig forskningsfråga?. Historisk Tidskrift (S). Svenska Historiska Föreningen. 140. 276-291.
Other (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.))
- Ellis Nilsson, S. (2020). Fragments of a Year: Saints’ Feasts in Swedish and Finnish Medieval Calendars (Part I).
- Ellis Nilsson, S. (2019). BLOGG DigHist – Perspectives on Digital History : An academic blog series: Introduction. Lund, Lund University.
- Ellis Nilsson, S. (2019). BLOGG Digitizing the Past for Cultural Heritage Research, Education, and Public Consumption. Lund, Lund University.
- Ellis Nilsson, S. (2019). Communicating the past through craftsmanship and art : the case of the Viking ship. Malmö, Malmö universitet.