News

Historical recipes and cookbooks abound to teach us about past foods and dietary habits. Less is known about the people who actually wrote them. A historical documentation project based in Uppsala University is trying to change that.

Following traditional, conservative and Christian Orthodox ideals, in contrast to the “morally adrift” West, and defending Russia as a superpower. These are crucial themes in how Russia perceives and defends its invasion of Ukraine, thinks Maria E...

The magnificent Rök Stone (Rökstenen), a runestone in the county of Östergötland, bears the world’s longest runic inscription: a message about death and fear of climate catastrophe from 9th-century Sweden. More people can now discover the story, t...

Henrik Williams’ speciality is deciphering runic inscriptions. He is the world’s only professor of runology, which may be the smallest academic subject in the world, but is now expanding at Uppsala University. Currently, he is attracting attention...

Have you ever wondered whether there is an interesting runestone nearby? Or would it be useful for you as a researcher to have access to specific runic inscriptions? Whatever the reason, the new digital search tool “Runor” provides access to all k...

Over the course of many years, Swedish-American Myrna G. Smith has supported runic research at Uppsala University. Now she has pledged a legacy of USD 1.5 million to ensure and advance future runic research at the University. With additional fundi...

The Order of Freemasons’ meticulous archives are fundamental to their identity. The unique structure of the masonic archives reinforces the secrecy and mystique of the self-image that has been fashioned by the Order — and characterises it in the e...

Uppsala University has a rich collection of manuscripts, printed material, art objects and maps related to the Ottoman Empire and other Turkic cultures. How did they come to Uppsala? This story is told in a new book “Turcologica Upsaliensia. An Il...

The experienced student looking to fine-tune their texts, those who have been out of education for a good while and doctoral students writing their dissertations; regardless of their basic situation, many people find it difficult to write academic...

This year’s winners of Uppsala University’s Distinguished Teaching Awards teach subjects in the fields of pedagogy, political science, surgery and chemistry. The Independent Pedagogical Award has been awarded to Christine Mackay Tircomnicu of the ...

“Digitising the National Tests is our biggest challenge to date. It’s going to take a huge effort to ensure that everything’s working properly when the time comes for 100,000 pupils to log in from their units,” says Anne Palmér, scientific leader ...

In his acclaimed debut novel, The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen offers new angles on the Vietnam war and its aftermath. Currently visiting Uppsala for a few days as a new honorary doctor, he wants to inspire more people to reflect on how we choos...

By studying social and linguistic patterns in doctor-patient meetings, Anna Lindström, professor of language and social interaction, wants to lay the foundation for more sustainable antibiotic prescription practices in medical care.

After more than 1,000 years, one of the greatest mysteries of the early Viking Age, the Rök runestone which bears the world’s longest runic inscription, appears to have been solved. According to four Swedish researchers, the puzzling inscription h...

The nine faculties at Uppsala University have decided on who they wish to appoint as honorary doctors this academic year. The new honorary doctors include researchers in fields as diverse as string theory, maternal healthcare, evolutionary biology...

Johan Ihre (1707-1780) was professor of Rethoric and Politics at Uppsala University for 42 years. During this time he managed no less than 453 dissertations, the theses of the time. These dissertations are currently a widely used source material i...

Lena Rydholm, professor of Chinese at Uppsala University’s Department of Linguistics and Philology, has been elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters as a working member in the philosophical and philological class. Her research has largely ...

Fuck is probably the most widespread profanity in the world. In the Nordic languages, fuck has become a well-established part of the vocabulary, while in languages such as Russian and Hindi, it is used but not established to the same extent. And i...

Multicultural Sweden needs a substantial expansion in both mother tongue instruction and teaching of Swedish as a second language. It is not only school children’s language development but also affirmation of their identity and background that cou...

Meet Beáta Megyesi. As Senior Lecturer in Computational Linguistics, she is head of research for an interdisciplinary project to develop research in historical cryptology that has modern applications. Find out what the project is about.