Grant
Two Early-Career Researchers Awarded Internationalisation Fellowships
Søren W. Kjær Rasmussen and Charlotte Epple have recently received internationalisation fellowships from the Carlsberg Foundation. The grants will enable them to spend time in leading international research environments while maintaining their affiliation with the Faculty of Humanities.
More about the research project “Danish-Swedish Relief and Social Reconstruction in Europe, 1944–1950”
Postdoctoral researcher Søren W. Kjær Rasmussen receives DKK 2.7 million and will be affiliated with the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
While much of Europe lay in ruins, Denmark and Sweden emerged from World War II relatively unscathed. Their economic strength and expertise in welfare and social aid allowed them to provide extensive relief and reconstruction assistance across Europe.
This project explores Danish and Swedish reconstruction efforts in Europe 1944-1950, carried out through Samarbejdsudvalget for Internationalt Hjælpearbejde and Svenska Kommittén för Internationell Hjälpverksamhet. It offers the first comprehensive analysis of how these organisations coordinated social aid, including food relief, healthcare, and child welfare, across Europe.
Postwar reconstruction is often seen as driven mainly by US initiatives, overlooking important European programmes funded and organised within Europe.
This project addresses that gap by analysing why and how Denmark and Sweden invested heavily in social aid, focusing on humanitarian ideals, welfare state ambitions, and the pursuit of international legitimacy and cooperation.
More about the research project "RECRAFTED: The reuse of parchment manuscripts in early modern textile crafts"
Postdoctoral researcher Charlotte Epple receives an internationalisation fellowship of just over DKK 2.7 million and will carry out her research at the University of Antwerp.
The parchment that pre-modern books and documents were written on is a durable and versatile material. Once a book’s content was no longer of interest, it was reused to make covers for other books, but also shoe soles, sewing patterns, or lace prickings. A great deal of knowledge was lost through this creative destruction that happened up until the early 19th century. Many important texts survive only in fragments because of this practice.
In the past, people often cut up old books and reused the leaves to make other things when they were no longer interested in reading them. They made book bindings, but also shoe soles, sewing patterns, or lace prickings out of the old parchment. RECRAFTED will study these fragments of books that were reused in the textile crafts in Britain and the Low Countries between 1500 and 1850.
These bits of parchment with old texts on them are hiding in historical textile collections, mostly uncatalogued and unstudied. They can tell the stories of how texts and ideas circulated and changed over time, and how early modern societies economised with finite material resources. Studying reuse in the pre-modern textile industries can contribute to current debates around similar themes.