Svea Larson

Credentials: Scandinavian Studies

Position title: Graduate Student

Email: selarson3@wisc.edu

Address:
Languages: Swedish, Finnish, French


Area(s) of Study: Scandinavian Studies / Folklore 

Pronouns: she/her/hers

About Me: I am a PhD student conducting research on Swedish-American folklore and history. I focus on material cultures of the home and body to try to understand the ways that Swedish-American migrants and their children created the feeling “home” and belonging though foodways, material objects, and other domestic practices. My work focuses on transnational bodies and the material objects with which they interact to explore entangled intellectual and material histories of home and homemaking, the material and sensorial construction of “Swedishness,” and its codification and construction in Swedish institutions and American contexts throughout the twentieth century. I am particularly interested in how objects can help us understand how international or transnational identities are formed and articulated in everyday life.

Education:

  • University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI – Master of Arts in History, 2020
    • Master’s Thesis: “The America Hat: Fashion in Swedish American Immigrant Exchanges, 1880-1940.”  
  • Pacific University, Oregon – Bachelor of Arts in History, Bachelor of Arts in French, 2015
    • Senior Thesis: “Salut les Copines: Young women, rock ‘n’ roll, and media in 1960s France” 

Courses Taught:

– FOLKLORE 100: Introduction to Folklore (F2021, S2022)
– HISTORY 119: Europe and the World, 1400-1815 (F2020)
– RELIG ST 104: Sacred Places and Journeys (S2021) 

Awards:

  • FLAS Fellowship for Summer for Study in Finnish (2021) 
  • FLAS Academic Year Fellowship for Study in Finnish (2019-2020) 
  • George L. Mosse Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in European Cultural History (2018-2020) 
  • Summer Research Travel Award, UW–Madison Graduate School (2019) 
  • Fulbright Student Scholar – Sweden (2017-2018) 
  • Lois Roth Endowment Award 2018  

Selected Publications:

  • Brown, Thomas J. and Svea Larson, “John Ericsson: Transatlantic biographies in the US and Sweden.” Blanck, Dag, and Adam Hjorthén. Swedish-American Borderlands: New Histories of Transatlantic Relations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021.
  • Brown, Thomas J. and Svea Larson, ““Migration, Militarism, and Modernity: The John Ericsson Memorial in Washington, D.C.,” Winterthur Portfolio 54, 2-3. (2020). https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/10.1086/711868