About us
The Department of Culture and Aestethics conducts research and teaching within seven main areas: Art History, Cultural Heritage Studies, Curating, History of Ideas, Literature, Musicology, and Theatre and Performance Studies.
The Department of Culture and Aestethics was founded January 1st 2015, when three departments became one: the Department of Art history, The Department of Literature and History of Ideas and the Department of Music and Theatre.
Today, the Department of Culture and Aestehtics is on of the largest departments of the Faculty of Humanities at Stockholm University, with about 150 employees, and 1000 students per academic year. Among our employees are researchers, of which around 50 are doctoral students, teachers, and administrative personnel.
About the buildings
The Department of Culture and Aesthetics is situated in the Manne Siegbahn buildings at Campus Frescati, in the Royal National City Park.
The Manne Siegbahn buildings were designed by the architect Gustav Holmdahl (1879-1958) and were erected in 1936. The buildings are Named after Nobel laureate Manne Siegbahn, professor of experimental physics at Stockholm University. When The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences founded an institute with Manne Sigbahn as director, the house at Frescativägen No. 22 was built as a private residence for him. The other Manne Siegbahn buildings were built for the Manne Siegbahn Institute. The Manne Siegbahn laboratory was a part of the Department of Physics at Stockholm University and was performing research and development in accelerator physics. The the laboratory also housed a cyclotron for the purpose.
The Faculty Club Manne Siegbahn, for Stockholm University employees with memberships resides at Frescativägen No. 22 in the Manne Siegbahn buildings.
The laboratory from when research and development in accelerator physics was conducted in the buildings is now rebuilt, and since 2019 it is the Stockholm University exhibition space Accelerator.
Photo: Sören Andersson
History
The Department of Culture and Aesthetics was founded 1 January 2015, when the departments of Art History, Literature and History of Ideas, and Music and Theatre Studies were joined together. By the that time, the Departments of Literature and History of Ideas, and Music and Theatre were already cooperating, since they had moved in togehter in the Manne Siegbahn buildings from the Södra Husen on the other side of the Frescati Campus. When the Department of Art History also moved in, all three departments started an active collaboration with both administration and interdisciplinary research. Research schools of Aestetichs and Cultural History started and the new Department of Culture and Aestethics was built on this collaboration.
Prizes and Awards
This is a list of prizes and awards won by researchers and teachers at the Department of Culture and Aestethics.
The Award for Good Teaching
Illustration: SaraMara
Every year since 1992, Stockholm University has awarded one or more talented teachers a prize of SEK 50,000 and a diploma that is formally handed over at the annual promotions and installation ceremony at the City Hall. The award is to be used to enable the teacher to carry on developing his or her professional competence. If you are a student or an employee at Stockholm University you can nominate a teacher for the award!
2007
Krzysztof Bak, Literature and History of Ideas
2000
Karin Helander, Theatre and Performance Studies
Honorary Doctorates
The awarding of an honorary doctorate is an expression of the University's appreciation of outstanding contributions in one or more of the University's areas of academic activity. The following schollars have been awarded an honorary doctorate, by nomination from the department.
Åsa Simma (left) during the Inauguration of new professors and conferment of doctoral degrees in Stockholm City Hall.
2025 Performing artist, director, playwright and activist Åsa Simma
2024 Writer and Critic Magnus Florin
2019 Photography Historian Eva Dahlman
2018 Actor Stina Ekblad
2014 Theatre Researcher Elaine Aston
2011 Art Curator David Neuman
2010
Author Ulf Stark
2008 Musician, Composer and Bandmaster Benny Andersson
2007 Dance Researcher Susan Foster
2003 Author Gun-Britt Sundström
2001
Translator Brita af Geijerstam
1999 Publisher Per I. Gedin
1998 Composer Povel Ramel
1997 Actor Erland Josephson
1995 Author Per Wästberg
1993 Author Ying Toijer-Nilsson
1989 Author Lennart Hellsing
Tomas Tranströmer, Nobel Laureate, Literature, 2011
Tomas Tranströmer. Photo: Albert Bonniers Förlag
The 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer. During the 1950s Tomas Tranströmer studied literature and poetics, the history of religion, and psychology, at Stockholm University College, which in 1960 became Stockholm University. In 1956 he gained a Bachelor of Arts degree in the same subjects. After completing his studies, Tomas Tranströmer was employed in 1957 as an assistant at the Institution for Psychometrics at Stockholm University.
Honorary Doctor at Faculty of Humanities 1990
Tomas Transtromer, born 1931, appears not only as one of the century's great Swedish poets – he is also an internationally celebrated poet, translated into over thirty languages.
Leading poets in other countries have also been inspired by his poetry, including the poet's Chinese interpreter Bei Dao and Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky. Brodsky has in fact previously proposed Tranströmer as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tranströmer pursued his studies and his first professional practice at Stockholm University, and the first major work on his poetry - Kjell Espmark's "Resans formler" - (1983) was published here.
More information
"The Nobel Prize in Literature 2011 - Bio-bibliography". Nobelprize.org. 7 Oct 2011
Last updated: 2025-10-21
Source: Department of Culture and Aesthetics