Anne Heith

I am an associate professor in Comparative Literature. During 2018 and 2019 I will be working with the projects "Making Place in Literature: Meänmaa in Contemporary Tornedalian Texts" and "Other Places in the Teaching of Literature". The projects examine place-making through analysis of constructions of Sápmi and Meänmaa, as well as representsations of migration. In-betweenness, double or multiple identities related to exclusion and belonging in more than one culture, respectively, are central themes. I am interested in how these forms of place-making transgress that which traditionally has been seen as Swedish, as well as bordering processes activated in constructions of Sweden and Swedishness. The writing of literary history from the vantage point of new conceptions of the nation is another field I am interested in. I co-operate with a couple of research groups exploring renewal of the genre of literary history. I have contributed an article about Sámi and Tornedalian literature in the Nordic Women's Literary History. I have worked abroad as a lecturer in Swedish in Tampere, Finland, and Bergen, Norway. Between 2008 and 2011 I worked full time with the project "Tornedalian Textual Landscapes" at Tromsö University, Norway. I was then a member of the Border Poetics Group. Together with researchers from the Nordic countries I started the network DINO (Diversity in Nordic Literature). The network has arranged a number of conferences at universities in the Nordic countries. In 2014 we arranged the conference "Ambiguities, Alterations, Alternatives: Transforming Nordic Literatures" at the Sámi University College in Kautokeino, Norway. Furthermore I have co-operated with the Swedish research network for Critical Race and Whiteness Studies and the network for Afro-European Studies. I have been a guest researcher at the Hugo Valentin-centre a number of times. When Umeå was a European capital of culture in 2014 I examined Sámi elements of Umeå 2014. This research was funded by the Faculty of Humanities and Vaartoe, the Center for Sámi Research, Umeå University. Between 2016 and 2017 I ha dthe opportunity to build on my treserach about Sámi and Tornedalian texts when Riksbankens Jublileumsfond, the Bank of sweden Tercentenary Foundation, funded the project "Decolonisation and Revivalism: The Role of Laestadianism in Contemporary Sámi and Tornedalian Texts". The outcome of the project is published in the volume Laestadius and Laestadianism in the Contested Field of Cultural Heritage: A Study of Contemporary Sámi and Tornedalian Texts.