Håkan Rydving

Title: Professor

Phone: +47 55 58 24 47

E-mail: Hakan.Rydving@ahkr.uib.no

Visiting address: Øysteinsgate 3

• Sami Religion (source criticism, religious change and continuity, rites de passage, concepts of person, bear rituals)
• Sami linguistics (South Sami, Lule Sami, North Sami; language variation, personal names and place names, history of the Sami language)
• Religions in the Circumpolar Area (concepts of person, comparison as method)
• Early Jewish and Islamic Philosophy
• Indian Philosophy of Language
• Religion and Politics (theoretical perspectives)
• Theoretical Perspectives in the Study of Religions
• Religion and Aesthetics

Rydving’s research can be placed in the intersection between linguistics and the history of religions. He especially focuses on variation and change, on indigenous perspectives and categories, and on problems of source criticism, conceptualisations, and the practicability of different approaches as research tools. 

 

Th.D., Uppsala University, 1993

Docent (≈ Ger. Habilitation) in the History of Religions, Uppsala University, 1994

 

Honours

Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of Uppsala (Academia Regia Scientiarum Upsaliensis), 2013–

Fellow of the Academy of the Royal Norwegian Society of Science and Letters (Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskabs Akademi), 2012–

Foreign Fellow of the Finnish Society of Science and Letters (Societas Scientiarum Fennica), 2012–

Foreign Fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi), 2009–

Working Foreign Fellow of the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy (Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien), Sweden, 2006–

 

Visiting Appointments

Visiting Professor (Directeur d’études invité), École pratique des hautes études, Section des sciences historiques et philologiques, Sorbonne, Paris, May 2004

Visiting Professor (Directeur d’études invité), École pratique des hautes études, Section des sciences religieuses, Sorbonne, Paris, Nov.–Dec. 2001

Nordic Visiting Professor (The Nordic Academy for Advanced Studies), Department of the History of Religions, Uppsala University, July 2000 – June 2001

Leader (with Prof. Juha Pentikäinen, University of Helsinki) of the international research group ‘The Language of Religion in Northern Contexts’, Centre for Advanced Studies, The Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, Aug. 1998 – July 1999

Visiting Professor, Department of Linguistics, Aarhus University, Denmark, April 1997

 

Expert in research councils, etc.

Academy of Finland: Culture Studies 2009, 2011

The Research Council of Norway: Sami Research 2010

The Swedish Research Councils: The Study of Religions, Non-European Languages and Cultures, Classical Studies 2001–03, 2010–12

University of Helsinki: Research Assessment Exercise 1999, 2005

 

Member of editorial boards

Sámi academica, 2009–

Journal of Northern Studies, 2007–

Sámi dieđalaš áigečála (Sami Academic Journal), 2005–

Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion, 2004–

Encyclopaedia of Uralic Mythologies, 2003–

 

Guest lectures

Czech Republic (Charles University, Prague; Masaryk University, Brno)

Finland (Åbo Akademi University; University of Helsinki; University of Oulu)

France (École pratique des hautes études, Sorbonne, Paris)

Germany (University of Göttingen)

Japan (Kyoto University)

Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México D.F.; Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia)

Norway (University of Oslo; University of Tromsø; Nord-Trøndelag University College)

Russia (The N.N. Miklukho-Maklaya Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Moscow)

Sweden (the Linnæus University, Växjö; Lund University; Örebro University; Stockholm University; Umeå University; University of Gothenburg; Uppsala University; Dalarna University College; Södertörn University College; the Swedish National Police Academy)

U.K. (University of Edinburgh)

U.S.A. (University of California, Santa Barbara)

 

Dissertations Supervised

Mona Farstad (University of Bergen), Chaste, Chosen, and Purified: An Analysis of the Qur’ānic Narratives about Maryam, 2012 / Present position: Senior Lecturer in the History of Religions, NLA University College, Bergen, Norway

Rolf Christoffersson (Uppsala University), Med tre röster och tusende bilder: om den samiska trumman [‘With Three Voices and Thousands of Pictures: The Sami Drum’], 2010 / Present position: Retired researcher in the History of Religions, Uppsala University, Sweden

Olle Sundström (University of Umeå), ”Vildrenen är själv detsamma som en gud”: ”gudar” och ”andar” i sovjetiska etnografers beskrivningar av samojediska världsåskådningar [‘“The Wild Reindeer is Itself the Same as a God”: “Gods”, and “Spirits” in Soviet Ethnographers’ Descriptions of Samoyedic World Views’], 2009 / Present position: Reader in the History of Religions, University of Umeå, Sweden

Gerd Marie Ådna (University of Bergen), “O, Son of the Two Sacrifices”: Muḥammad and the Formation of Sacrifice in Early Islam, 2007 / Present position: Senior Lecturer in the History of Religions, School of Mission and Theology, Stavanger, Norway

Torsten Hylen (Uppsala University), Ḥusayn, the Mediator: A Structural Analysis of the Karbalā’ Drama according to Abū Ja‘far Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 923), 2007 / Present position: Senior Lecturer in the History of Religions, Dalarna University College, Falun, Sweden

Jelena Porsanger (University of Tromsø), “Bassejoga čáhci”: gáldut nuortasámiid eamioskkoldaga birra álgoálbmotmetodologiijaid olis [‘“The Water of the Sacred River”: The Sources of the Indigenous Religion of the Eastern Sami within the Frame of Indigenous Methodologies’], 2006 / Present position: Rector, Sami University College, Guovdageaidnu, Norway

Roar Fotland (University of Bergen), Ancestor Christology in Context: Theological Perspectives of Kwame Bediako, 2005 / Present position: Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Oslo

Bjørn Ola Tafjord (University of Bergen), Ritualiserte forståingar: bribriar og bahá’i-trua [‘Ritualised Understandings: Bribris and the Bahá'í Faith’], 2004 / Present position: Senior Lecturer in the History of Religions, University of Tromsø, Norway

Ulrika Mårtensson (Uppsala University), The True New Testament: Sealing the Heart’s Covenant in al-Tabarî’s Ta’rîkh al-Rusul wa’l-Mulûk, 2001 / Present position: Professor of the History of Religions, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim

Mette Ramstad (University of Bergen), Conversion in the Pacific: Eastern Polynesian Latter-Day Saints’ Conversion Accounts and their Development of a LDS Identity, 2001 / Present position: Senior Lecturer in the History of Religions, Østfold University College, Halden, Norway

George Charles (Kanaqlak) (University of California, Santa Barbara), Yuyaraq: The Way of the Human Being in Contemporary Yup’ik Thought, 2000 / Present position: Center Director, National Resource Center for American Indian, Alaska Native & Native Hawaiian Elders, University of Alaska, Anchorage, U.S.A.

 

Opponent Appointed by the Faculty at the Public Defence of Doctoral Theses

Taarna Valtonen (Giellagas Institute of Sami Linguistics and Sami Studies, University of Oulu), Kulttuurista onomastiikkaa: neljän saamen kielen paikannimien rakenne, sanasto ja rinnakkaisnimet vähemmistö–enemmistö-suhteiden kuvastajina [Cultural Onomastics. Place Names in Four Sami Languages as Mirrors of Minority–Majority Relations: Construction, Vocabulary, and Parallel Names], 2014.

Irja Seurujärvi-Kari (Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies, University of Helsinki) Ale jaskot eatni­giella: alkuperäiskansaliikkeen ja saamen kielen merkitys saamelaisten iden­titeetille [‘“Do Not Become Silent Mother Tongue”: The Role of the Civil Rights Movement among Indigenous Peoples and the Sami Language for Sami Identity’], 2012

Tiina Äikäs (Department of Archaeology, University of Oulu), Rantakiviltä tuntureille: pyhät paikat saamelaisten rituaalisessa maisemassa [‘From Beach Stones to Mountains: Sacred Places in the Sami Ritual Landscape’], 2011

Märit Frändén (Department of Scandinavian Languages, Uppsala University),”Att blotta vem jag är”: släktnamns­skick och släktnamnsbyten hos samer i Sverige 1920–2009 [‘“Laying Bare who I am”: Surnames and Changes of Surname among the Sami of Sweden’], 2010 

Kaisa Rautio Helander (Giellagas Institute of Sami Linguistics and Sami Studies, University of Oulu), Namat dan nammii: sámi báikenamaid dáruiduhttin Várjjaga guovllus Norgga uniovdnaáigge loahpas [‘In the Name of Names: The Norwegianisation of the Sami Place Names in the Várjjat Area at the End of the Unionification Period of Norway’], 2008

Karin Wilson (Department of Modern Languages, Uppsala University), Markusevangeliet i Lars Rangius samiska översättning från 1713 [‘The Gospel according to Mark in Lars Rangius’ Sami Translation from 1713’], 2008

Karin Granqvist (Department of History, Umeå University), Samerna, staten och rätten i Torne lappmark under 1600-talet: makt, diskurs och representation [‘The Sami, the State and the Court in Torne Lappmark during the Sevententh Century: Power, Discourse, and Representation’], 2004

Maths Bertell (Department of Comparative Religion, Stockholm University), Tor och den nordiska åskan: föreställningar kring världsaxeln [‘Thor and the Nordic Thunder: Conceptions Connected to the World Axis’], 2003

Maja Dunfjeld (Department of Art History, University of Tromsø), Tjaalehtjimmie: form og innhold i sørsamisk ornamentikk [‘Form and Content of South Sami Ornamentation’], 2002

Erika Meyer-Dietrich (Department of the History of Religions, Uppsala University), Nechet und Nil: ein ägyptischer Frauensarg des Mittleren Reiches aus religionsökologischer Sicht, 2001

Eli Høydalsnes (Department of Art History, University of Tromsø), Møte mellom tid og sted: bilder av Nord-Norge  [‘Encounters between Time and Place: Pictures of Northern Norway’], 1999 

 

Publications in Cristin

Some examples:

Håkan Rydving, Les chants, les noms et la vie: conceptions traditionelles sames de la personne, L’Image du Sápmi III (Humanistica Oerebroensia. Artes et linguae 17): 13–28, [éd.] K. Andersson, Örebro 2013: Humanistic Studies at Örebro University. 

Håkan Rydving, Words and Varieties: Lexical Variation in Saami (Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 269), Helsinki 2013: Finno-Ugrian Society

Håkan Rydving, Perspectivas del norte: cinco textos sobre la lengua y la cultura de los samis (Antropológica 21), eds. R. Martínez & V. Koricancic, México D.F. 2012: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México / Embajada de Suecia.

Rydving, Håkan, Le chamanisme aujourd’hui: constructions et déconstructions d’une illusion scientifique, Études mongoles & sibériennes, centrasiatiques & tibétaines 42, Paris 2011. URL http://emscat.revues.org/index1815.html. 

Rydving, Håkan, The ‘bear ceremonial’ and bear rituals among the Khanty and the Sami, Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 46, 1: 31–52, Helsinki 2011. URL: http://ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/temenos/article/view/6940/6752.

Rydving, Håkan, Le « jeu rituel » du noaidi chez les Samis préchrétiens (Laponie, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles), Revue de l’histoire des religions 2010: 211–230, Paris 2010. URL http://rhr.revues.org/7577. 

Rydving, Håkan, Tracing Sami Traditions: In Search of the Indigenous Religion among the Western Sami during the 17th and 18th Centuries (Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning, Serie B, Skrifter 135), Oslo 2010: Novus forlag.

Rydving, Håkan, A western folk category in mind? [A critique of the cognitive science of religion] Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 44,1: 73–99, Helsinki 2008. URL: http://ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/temenos/article/view/4599/6790.

Rydving, Håkan, Language proficiency and ethnicity: the Sami case, Circumpolar Ethnicity and Identity (Senri Ethnological Studies 66): 357–370, eds. T. Irimoto & T. Yamada, Osaka 2004: National Museum of Ethnology.

Rydving, Håkan, Saami place-names and personal names in the Nordic countries, Onoma: Journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences 37 (2002): 69–79, Leuven 2002.

Rydving, Håkan, The End of Drum-Time: Religious Change among the Lule Saami, 1670s–1740s (Historia Religionum 12), Stockholm 1993: Almqvist & Wiksell International; 2nd ed. 1995; 3rd ed. 2004.

[With Lars-Gunnar Larsson; editor of the Sami material] Atlas Linguarum Europae 1: 2–7, Assen & Roma 1986–2007: Van Gorcum & Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato.

 

Spring terms

• RELV105 Sami Religion (part of a larger course)
• RELV202/302 World Philosophies (course leader together with Prof. Knut A. Jacobsen) (not the spring of 2014)

Autumn terms

• RELV208/308 Sami Religion (course leader)
• RELV228/328 Religion and Politics (course leader)
• RELV301 Theoretical Perspectives in the History of Religions (course leader)

• Sami Mythology / Мифология саами (Encyclopaedia of Uralic Mythologies /  Энциклопедия уральских мифологии)
• The Concept of Shamanism
• Rethinking the Boundaries of ‘the Sacred’
• Marcel Mauss and the Creation of Order out of Chaos
• The Language of the Sami Bear Rituals