About the group
The ’love and hate’ of American democracy is a global and historical phenomenon and feeling.
“Experiencing American Democracy” (ExAm) explores how this unfolded and was evoked for Nordic men and women, their communities, organisations, commemorations, and narratives, from the 1800s until the present.
Few countries have had more emigrants traveling to the USA than the Scandinavian. The project studies the role of migration for the conceptions, circulations, and commemorations of American democracy as individual, everyday experiences within a transatlantic public sphere.
Purpose
By examining interchanges between Scandinavia and America on the level of individuals, communities, and organisations, and not just governments and states, the ExAm group aims to produce new understandings of how and why American democracy has been and continues to be a forceful ‘emotive’ in the political discourse of Nordic societies.
ExAm brings together scholars from the Humanities, Theology and Law and utilises digitisation methodologies in the study of literary, historical, and contemporary material.
The objective is to examine the significance of American democracy in shaping Nordic societies, mindsets, and the experiences of both men and women, within a transatlantic and historical context.
Additionally, the research group seeks to explore the interconnectedness of emigration and Americanisation.
Project description
Read full project description here
Projects
"Dreams about "Nylænde". Transatlantic connections among women’s rights leaders and suffragists in Norway and the USA 1880–1925", by PhD candidate Mona Holm, in collaboration with Anno Museum.
Financed by The Research Council of Norway, project number 327229. Project period: 01.11.2021–31.10.2025.
Doctoral Research Fellowship
A position as a research fellow (SKO 1017) affiliated with ExAm is available at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History (IAKH). Read the full job advertisement on Jobbnorge.
Cooperation
- Democracy, Freedom and Boundaries, University of Oslo
- Labor Entanglements across the Atlantic
- National Library of Norway
- Narrative Cultures of Utopian Emigration and the Formation of Modern Regimes of Attention (NC-RoA)
- Norwegian Emigrant Museum
- Eidsvoll 1814
- Bicentennial Commemoration of Norwegian Emigration to North America
1825–2025