The purpose of the doctoral network The Age of Sweden: process, experience and legacy (AoS) at Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU) is to provide training and education leading to a successful doctoral degree in Nordic history or Nordic Ethnology.
In the AoS-Network at Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU) close collaboration with historians at the Universities of Greifswald, Jyväskylä and Tartu is essential. AoS draws attention to the fact that a number of the countries and regions around the Baltic Sea share a common historical bond; they were all under Swedish rule at one time.
The Swedish era has left a diverse legacy in all these areas that different generations have given new meanings in a historical cultural interaction between past and present. As a process, the era varied in terms of length and content and gave rise to divergent experiences within different social or ethnic groups.
In AoS, knowledge on the history of the different regions and countries be used trans-nationally in a cross-fertilising approach that will raise new relevant questions for research. In AoS, doctoral students will be trained to “think outside the national box” in order for them to be able to vitalise their discipline.
Chair: Professor Nils Erik Villstrand
Vice-chair: Associate professor Ann-Catrin Östman