In the late 1990’s she was part of a cataloguing project on Queen Christina’s manuscript collection in the Vatican library. She has had several bursaries and scholarships from, among others, the Swedish Institute in Rome and the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, to work in libraries and archives in Rome and Venice.
Helena has co-arranged international workshops in Rome and Umeå connected to topics on religion, heritage and cultural contexts. She has presented papers in international conferences in various fields such as sociology of religion, cultural history and critical heritage studies, and arranged a session in the ACHS conference in Canberra (2014) on sacredness, heritage and authenticity. She is a member of research groups EMoDiR (Early Modern Religious Dissent and Radicalism, www.emodir.net) and UGPS (Umeå Group for Premodern Studies).
Helena has published articles in Swedish academic peer-reviewed journals, among which ”Heligt – Hotfullt – Historiskt. Kulturarvifieringen av det katolska i 1600-talets Sverige” (2011) in Lychnos, annual for History of Science and Ideas in Sweden. She has articles accepted and under preparation for an international anthology (planned for publication in 2016).
Research interests include contemporary heritage politics, uses of the sacred past, religious heritage in conflicts, religious controversy, early modern history, history of collections and museums, relics and sacred materiality, and Italian – Scandinavian relations in the early modern period.
Sessions in which Helena Wangefelt Ström participates
Saturday 4 June, 2016
Sessions in which Helena Wangefelt Ström attends
Friday 3 June, 2016
The west of Mile End is the fruit of the unlikely encounter between a French-Canadian artisans’ village, a new suburb at the turn of the 20th century marketed mainly to the English-speaking middle class, and the heart of Montreal’s Jewish life between the wars. Discover how these influences have shaped the neighborhood and the traces they have left. Presentation in English. Walking tour. Organization: Mile End Memories Fees: 16$ + taxes
Welcome addresses and cocktail, followed by the Concordia Signature Event "The Garden of the Grey Nuns". As the opening ceremony and cocktail take place in the former Grey Nuns' Motherhouse, recycled into campus residence and reading rooms by Concordia University, delegates will also have the possibility to discover the video Three Grey Nuns (3 minutes, by Ron Rudin and Phil Lichti. Three Grey Nuns recount their memories of communal life in the Grey Nun’s Motherhouse. Built...
Saturday 4 June, 2016
What if we changed our views on heritage? And if heritage has already changed? While, on the global scene, states maintain their leading role in the mobilization of social and territorial histories, on the local scale, regions, neighbourhoods and parishes have changed. Citizens and communities too: they latch on to heritage to express an unprecedented range of belongings that no law seems to be able to take measures to contain, often to the discontent of...
Since the beginning of the 19th century religious buildings and artefacts of the West have been involved in a continuous process of musealization. In the time-period subsequent to the Second World War, the general forces of secularisation increasingly turned religious buildings, most of them churches, into heritage and substantial parts of Christian practices into history. On a global scale (Western), conservation and heritage practices have been applied on tangible and intangible expressions...
Most of what we experience as heritage emerges into conscious recognition through a complex mixture of political and ideological filters, including nationalism. In these processes, through a variety of devices (museums, scholarly research, consumer reproduction, etc.), dualistic classifications articulate a powerful hierarchy of value and significance. In particular, the tangible-intangible pair, given legitimacy by such international bodies as UNESCO, reproduces a selective ordering of cul...
Sunday 5 June, 2016
"What does heritage change?" is a multifaceted question to which the answer(s) are in primary respects related to real-life negotiations among different groups of citizens, cultures, races, ethnic groups, sexual identities, and social classes about received, official and/or widely accepted or accomodated intangible attributes, cultural traditions, historic monuments, buildings, and other transmitted or revived historical legacies. Heritage designated by and for whom, for what motivations, an...
Monday 6 June, 2016
__ Please note that this session is scheduled in a distant location from the main conference; transportation will be provided to registered participants. Bus pick-up is scheduled at 7:30 AM in front of the DS Building (320 Saint Catherine East street, on the UQAM site and will return for 7:00 PM at the same location. Please wear your badge. ___ Veuillez noter que cet atelier est à l'extérieur de Montréal. Les délégués qui se seront enregistrés seront transporté...
Tuesday 7 June, 2016
While historical churches are being abandoned all over the Christian West, more and more places are growing the opposite way: pilgrimage sites are being enlarged and enhanced, whole urban districts are being developed with churches and temples boasting diverse, and often unorthodox, religious practices. Epistemologically linked to heritage, the sacred now seems to follow a path of its own, staging itself in new settings where the “religious heritage” refers mostly to common practices, however...
The closing dinner of the conference, called “Pawâ” according to a French-Canadian tradition borrowed from the Native American lexicon, will be an opportunity to discover, in the heart of the Old Port of Montreal, an original culinary creation by the caterer Agnus Dei, from the renowned Maison Cartier-Besson in Montreal, leader in its field for its boundless creativity and event expertise. The dinner, in the form of stations, will offer delegates an exploration of Quebecois culinary heritage,...
Wednesday 8 June, 2016
More details to come. Bus tour. Tour Guide : Luc Noppen Coût / Fees : 48$ + taxes