The anthology Historic House Museums: Nordic Perspectives (tentative titel) presents a broad range of perspectives on historic house museums in the Nordic countries – Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Greenland, Faroe Islands and Island. The book sheds light on how we in the Nordic countries understand, define, preserve, exhibit, manage and communicate about our historic house museums. This includes house museums in the broadest sense of the word - from farmhouses, manor houses, artist homes, bunker museums, open air museums and other types of historic buildings that have been preserved, and where people have lived for shorter or longer periods of time.
Editors: Ane Hejlskov Larsen and Mia Falch Yates
Historic House Museums: Nordic Perspectives (expected 2026)
Editors: Ane Hejlskov Larsen & Mia Falch Yates
The anthology Historic House Museums: Nordic Perspectives (tentative titel) presents a broad range of perspectives on historic house museums in the Nordic countries – Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Greenland, Faroe Islands and Island. The book sheds light on how we in the Nordic countries understand, define, preserve, exhibit, manage and communicate about our historic house museums. This includes house museums in the broadest sense of the word - from farmhouses, manor houses, artist homes, bunker museums, open air museums and other types of historic buildings that have been preserved, and where people have lived for shorter or longer periods of time.
Much of the current literature on historic house museums comes from the US or UK, where good efforts have been made to create overviews, categories and definitions that clarify which types of historic house museums can be identified and how they can be understood. With our anthology, we wish to contribute to this literature by presenting perspectives on historic house museums from the Nordic countries, where our unique cultures, history and climate in this region of the world, come into play. In some ways, the Nordic countries present huge variety, but in other ways we are tied together, not least through political history, language, culture and to some extent - climate. This book presents an opportunity to gather perspectives from the Nordic countries, on the most pressing issues, challenges and potentials related to historic house museums in this region of the world. This includes perspectives on preservation and conservation; organisational perspectives; interpretation; collections; dissemination and visitor communication; community and identity; material or immaterial heritage and not least more general discussions on how historic house museums are defined, categorised and understood in the different Nordic countries.
The book is aimed at museum staff, researchers and academic students, working within the fields of museums & cultural heritage, internationally. It aims at giving Nordic house museums and Nordic house museum researchers a voice in international discussions about the definitions and value of this unique category of museums.
We invite authors to write about perspectives such as:
Preservation & conservation
Nordic climate and conservation / Climate-related issues / Geographical or cultural perspectives on preservation and conservation / Materials & sustainability / Risk assessment / Collection management / Security & (theft) prevention / Monitoring and prioritising / Conservation technologies / Physical forces – fire, water, contamination, light, temperature.
Visitor communication and public access
Visitor data & demography / Visitor communication / Digital communication and access / Physical accessibility / Intellectual accessibility / Interpretation & access / Virtual communication & access / Communication technologizes / Multimodal communication / Sensory-based communication / sound, light, touch, taste / Storytelling / Exhibitions.
Community and identity issues
Who feels ownership / Who is included / Who feels represented and not represented / The local and the national / Class, gender and ethnicity / representation and inclusion / Local communities / Special groups / Social sustainability / Revitalization & returning visitors.
Material, Immaterial or hybrid perspectives
Collections / Authentic objects / Material collections / Buildings / Rooms / Interior / Material Space / Storage / registration / Immaterial heritage / Preserving immaterial heritage / Nordic craft traditions / Preserving community and identity / Preserving immaterial heritage / Mixed or hybrid realities.
Collection interpretation & narratives
The lived life / Biography vs. objects or house / Hidden or untold narratives / The unpreserved, neglected or hidden / Reconstruction / Construction / New & Old / Past & present / Collecting & cultural sustainabillity.
Organisational perspectives & issues
Organisational challenges and developments / professional skills - which are at play, or which professional skills are missing at house museums / Economic and organisational sustainability / Cultural & social sustainability.
What is a house museum
When is something a house museum and what is special about them / How are house museums defined or categorised in your country / Which unique categories of house museums exist in your country / The status on house museum research in your country.
We ask authors to submit their article proposals of between ½ and 2 pages.
The proposals should include a clear research question, and present the focus area, main arguments or discussion points and main research methods – depending on which type of article it concerns.
We welcome different article formats as we wish to combine more classic academic and theoretical formats with for instance case-based dilemmas, interview-based articles, new statistical or qualitative data, image-based research or other experimental formats.
We welcome article proposals, preferably in English, as this will be the main language for the final publication. We are however open to submissions in Nordic languages, if this this is important to the author. In such cases, we will provide an English translation of the article, for the final publication, and aim to also make the Nordic language version available on-line.
Please include your full name, organization and CV, in your submission, along with your proposal.
Any questions or comments, feel free to contact us at the above e-mail address.
After the submission date, the editorial group will gather and read through all the submitted article proposals. A response and decision will be announced in December 2024. At this point, a new deadline will also be set for the full paper submission (approximately august 2025).
After the final submission, all papers will be sent for double blind review and will go through a standard review process. Reviews are expected to be completed by November 1st, 2025. A new date for re-submission will be set for early 2026, and publication is expected in 2026.
This book project has been initiated by the Danish Network for House Museums, which is a network under The Association of Danish Museums, ODM (https://www.dkmuseer.dk/english-odm/). The Danish Network for House Museums has been functioning since 2018 and organises events and annual seminars on the specific challenges, potentials and issues related to house museums.
The editorial group consists of professor of Museology Ane Hejlskov Larsen and postdoc Mia Falch Yates, from the Department of Art History & Museology, School of Communication & Culture, at Aarhus University and Rikke Bjarnhof, Dean and head of the Institute of Conservation at The Royal Danish Academy of Architecture, Design & Conservation, Copenhagen.
