Hanna Acke, M. A.

History Department

Curriculum Vitae:

Ph.D. project:

“... because the believers are so few in this bleak land”: The role mission played in Swedish identity constructs around 1900

In current discussions about European colonialism, Sweden usually positions itself as not being involved. Sweden – so the general tenor – had (and has) nothing to do with colonial violence. Effectively, however, Swedes were involved in European colonialism not only through trade companies and slave trade: the Christian mission in the colonies is a field of activity which is often ignored and in which they were active to an outstanding degree measured against the country’s population.

If, then, colonialism is not only perceived as military expansion and economic exploitation but also as an ideology justifying such oppression, Sweden was actively involved in colonialism: Swedish missionaries contributed to consolidating the colonialistic ideology of the superiority of European culture and Christian religion and of the moral obligation to bring these to the people.

My thesis is: The mission outside Europe has played an enormously important role in the development of European (or possibly also specifically Swedish) self-images which have emerged from the colonial ideology and which are to some extent still valid today.

Thus, the Swedish occupation with the mission in the late 19th and early 20th century forms my dissertation’s central object of investigation: By categorising one’s “own” religion and that of the colonialised “other”, how are self-images relating to religion and also − connected with this − relating to culture, nationality or regionality, gender, race and class established? What kind of knowledge about the colonies do the players in this discourse in Sweden establish? Which identities and characteristics do they credit themselves with? I will look into these questions on the basis of source material in which Swedish missionaries give accounts of the situation in the colonies for a Swedish public.

Research Interests:

• Scandinavian mission
• Language and colonialism
• Critical lexicography
• Depiction of Islam in Sweden
• Denunciations
• Language politics in Scandinavia

Function within the Cluster/Membership in projects and groups:

• Member of the study group Emic and etic perspectives on Religion and Politics

Publications:

• Schimpfwörter – Beschimpfungen – Pejorisierungen: Wie in Sprache Macht und Identitäten verhandelt werden, edited with Lann Hornscheidt and Ines Jana, Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel, 2011.
• „Einleitung“ (with Lann Hornscheidt and Ines Jana), in: Schimpfwörter – Beschimpfungen – Pejorisierungen: Wie in Sprache Macht und Identitäten verhandelt werden, edited with Lann Hornscheidt and Ines Jana, Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel, 2011, pp. 7-14.
• „Zum Umgang mit Pejorisierungen in einsprachigen Wörterbüchern“, in: Schimpfwörter – Beschimpfungen – Pejorisierungen: Wie in Sprache Macht und Identitäten verhandelt werden, edited with Lann Hornscheidt and Ines Jana, Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel, 2011, pp. 69-94.
• „Das Pejo-Projekt – Eine Fragebogenuntersuchung zum Umgang mit Beschimpfungen unter Jugendlichen“ (with Lann Hornscheidt, Ines Jana and Gisa Marehn), in: Schimpfwörter – Beschimpfungen – Pejorisierungen: Wie in Sprache Macht und Identitäten verhandelt werden, edited with Lann Hornscheidt and Ines Jana, Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel, 2011, pp. 227-234.
• Pejo. Ein multimediales Lehrwerk zu Schimpfwörter – Beschimpfungen – Pejorisierungen: Wie in Sprache Macht und Identitäten verhandelt werden, with Jana Eder, Ines Jana, Lann Hornscheidt, Gisa Marehn and Tim Tigges, Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel, 2011.
• Article on „Islam“, „Muslim“ and „Religion“, in: Rassismus auf gut Deutsch. Ein kritisches Nachschlagewerk zu rassistischen Sprachhandlungen, edited by Adibeli Nduka-Agwu and Lann Hornscheidt, Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel, 2010.

courses:

• Summer semester 2010: University of Münster, Department for Scandinavian Studies: Ingenting er som en felles fiende – Scandinavian images of the Self and the Other in literature and media
• Winter semester 2008-09: Humboldt University Berlin, Baltic Sea School: „Research Tutorial“
• Summer semester 2008: Humboldt University Berlin, Department for Northern European Studies in cooperation with the university of Gotheburg: "Linguistics 2" (in German)
• Winter semester 2004-05, summer semester 2005: Humboldt University Berlin, Department for Northern European Studies: Project tutorial on Linguistics and comic strips, "Images of speech in speaking images" (in German)

Contact:

Supervisor

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