On May 3d, 13–15, LUCK will arrange a Zoom-seminar were two freshly minted Norwegian PhD:s, Susann Holmberg and Sine Halkjelsvik Bjordal, present their fascinating research on the early modern history of knowledge. Their respective studies demonstrate that the history of knowledge is no longer just something scholars talk about – it is something that historians do. But what are the consequences of this new approach for empirical research?

Susann Holmberg defended her thesis, Contracted Knowledge: Venereal Disease in Eighteenth-Century Norway, at the University of Oslo on October 2, 2020. She has employed a wide concept of knowledge which incorporates the many actors on the medical marketplace, ranging from patients to community healers to university-trained physicians. Her thesis was supervised by the late Erling Sandmo and Morten Fink-Jensen.

Sine Halkjelsvik Bjordal defended her thesis, “Om denne haves intet mærkværdigt”: En tekst- och kunnskapshistorisk studie av stavkirkene på 1700- og 1800-tallet, at the University of Oslo on March 5, 2021. Her study investigates how different forms of knowledge about stave churches circulated in Norwegian society and provides a complex and diverse cultural history of the phenomenon. Her thesis was supervised by Helge Jordheim.

The LUCK-seminar will be in Scandinavian.