Tobias Harding

Professor
Faculty of Humanities, Sports and Educational Science
Department of Culture, Religion and Social Studies
Campus Bø (2-358)
My background is in culture studies, political science, and history of religion. I started researching national identity and the institutional development of Swedish cultural policy in the early 2000's. Later research has concerned topics such as heritage policy, civil society and democracy, religious heritage and secularization, and the concepts of Bildung, culture, and modernity.

Responsibilities

Coordinator for the Master Degree Program in Culture Studies.

Teaching:

  • cultural policy
  • cultural theory 
  • cultural leadership
  • methods  
  • cultural heritage.

Research Groups:

  • Uses of Cultural Heritage
  • Culture and Sport Policy

International positions: 

  • Chair of the scientific committee of the Nordic Conference on Cultural Policy Research
  • Member of the oversight council (tillsynsråd) of the Swedish Agency for Cultural Analysis.
  • Member of the editorial board of the Nordic Journal of Cultural Policy
  • Member of the editorial board of the Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society
  • Member of the research network Religious Heritage in Transition (RHiT)
  • Reporteur for Sweden to The Compendium for Cultural Policies and Trends

Competences

  • Cultural policy
  • Cultural heritage
  • Politics of memory
  • Nationalism
  • Civil society
  • Religion and secularization
  • Bildung
  • Conceptual history

CV

2007. Ph.D. in Culture Studies, Linköping University. Dissertation title: Nationalising culture: The reorganisation of national culture in Swedish cultural policy 1970-2002.

2007-2009. Secretary to the Swedish Government Commission on Cultural Policy.

2009-2012. Postdoc/Expert at Linköping University. Head of the Swecult institute, and researcher in the project Democracit Learning in Educational NGO's.

2012-2013. Expert evaluation of Culture Programs for the Swedish National Council for Adult Education.

2013-2017. Senior Lecturer in Cultural Policy at University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Researcher in the research project How the Church of Sweden was Transformed into National Cultural Heritage.

2017. Received the Title of Docent in Cultural Policy from the University of Jyväskylä, in Finland.

2017-. Professor at University College of South-East Norway /University of South-Eastern Norway.

Publications

Selected publications:

Harding, Tobias (2022). Culture wars? The (re)politicization of Swedish cultural policy. Cultural Trends. 31(2), 115-132.

Hansen, Louise Ejgod; Harding, Tobias (2022). Samspillet mellem forskning, praksis og politik. Nordic Journal of Cultural Policy. 25(1), 5-8.

 

Tobias Harding (2021). World culture, world history, and the roles of a museum: A conceptual study of the Swedish museums of world culture, debates concerning them, and their roles in cultural politics. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 27:3, 330-343.

Tobias Harding (2020) "Från folkbildningskonsensus till ifrågasättande? Demokratilärande i det civila samhällets organisationer" i Niklas Hill & Aron Schoug (red.) Lärande i civilsamhället: En forskarantologi. Stockholm: Trinambai / H:ström text & kultur. 

Tobias Harding (2019). Heritage Churches as Post-Christian Sacred Spaces: Reflections on the Significance of Government Protection of Ecclesiastical Heritage in Swedish National and Secular Self-Identity. Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research 2019, 11 (2), 209-230.

Tobias Harding (2019). The Role of the Popular Movement Tradition in Shaping Civil Society Leadership Education in Sweden. Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership (JNEL), Vol 9, No 1 (2019).

Tobias Harding (2018). Preserving churches for future generations: Central values in Swedish policies on Church heritage 1920-2010. Nordic Journal of Cultural Policy. 2018:1.

Tobias Harding; Linnea Lindsköld; Sakarias Sokka; Nanna Kann-Rasmussen (2018) (eds.) "To lead or not to lead? And how?" Temanummer. Nordisk kulturpolitisk tidsskrift, 2018:2.

Tobias Harding (2015) “Bildning as a Central Concept in the Cultural Policy of the Swedish Government - From Arthur Engberg to Alice Bah Kuhnke” in Nordic Journal of Cultural Policy, 2015:2.

Tobias Harding (2015) “The Dawn of the Secular State? Heritage and Identity in Swedish Church and State Debates 1920-1939”, in International Journal of Cultural Policy,  vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 631-647.

Erling Bjurström & Tobias Harding (eds.) (2013) Bildning och demokrati. Nya vägar i det svenska folkbildningslandskapet. (”Bildning and democracy: New paths in Swedish popular adult education and learning”). Stockholm: Carlssons.

Tobias Harding (2013) “Faith-Based Organizations and the Secular State: The Establishment of a Muslim Study Association in Sweden”, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 341-355.

Harding, Tobias (2012) Framtidens civilsamhälle: Underlagsrapport 3 till Framtidskommissionen. (”Civil society of the future: Background report 3 to the Commission on the Future of Sweden”)Stockholm: Office of the Prime Minister.

Harding, Tobias (2012) ”How to Establish a Study Association: Translation, Packaging and Isomorphic Pressures on New CSOs Entering a Neo-Corporative Adult Education Field in Sweden” in Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, vol. 23, no. 1.

Harding, Tobias (2011) “Learning Democracy in a Swedish Gamers Association: Representative Democracy as Experiential Knowledge in a Liquid Civil Society” in The European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults (RELA), vol. 2. no. 2.

Harding, Tobias (2010) ”Avförtrollningen av Midgård: Tolkiens modernitetskritik och ambivalenta behandling av esoterism i trilogin Härskarringen” (”The disenchantment of Middle Earth: Tolkien’s ambivalent treatment of esotericm in the Lord of the Rings trilogy”) in Mattias Fyhr & Per Faxneld (eds.) Förborgade tecken: västerländsk esoterism i skönlitteraturen, Lund: Ellerströms.

Harding, Tobias (2010) “Playing Against the Modern World? Role-Playing Games in Late Modernity”, presented at the Nordic role-playing conference Knutpunkt, Katrineholm, April, 2010. Published in Elge Larsson (ed.) Playing Reality: Articles on Live-Action Role-Playing, Stockholm: Knutpunkt 2010/Interacting Arts.

Harding, Tobias (2009) ”Var finns den statliga kulturpolitiken? Inte bara på kulturdepartementet” (”Where is national cultural policy? Not only at the Ministry of Culture”), in Nordic Journal of Cultural Policy, 2009, no. 2.
Republished in Anders Frenander (ed.) (2010) Arkitekter på armlängds avstånd. Att studera kulturpolitik, Borås: Valfrid.

Harding, Tobias (2009) “Ärans och hjältarnas språk? Det politiska försvaret av svenska språket från 1500-talet och framåt” (”The political defense of the Swedish language from the 16th century and onwards”) in Nordic Journal of Cultural Policy, 2009, no. 1.

Tobias Harding (2007) Nationalising Culture. The Reorganisation of National Culture in Swedish Cultural Policy 1970-2002. Linköping Studies in Arts and Science nr. 393. Doctoral dissertation. Norrköping: University of Linköping.