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  4. Anna Blennow

Anna Blennow

Researcher

Department of Languages and Literatures
Telephone
+46 31-786 17 69
Mail
anna.blennow@sprak.gu.se

About Anna Blennow

I received my PhD in Latin at the University of Gothenburg in 2006, and since 2014, I have held positions as Senior Lecturer and researcher in Latin at the Department of Languages ​​and Literatures. I became an Associate Professor in 2007 and was promoted to Professor of Latin in 2025. I am also active as a writer and essayist, contributing to among others Sydsvenska Dagbladet and OBS on Swedish Radio.




2026–2027, I am working on a project concerning the Swedish and Latin writings of Swedish diplomat Schering Rosenhane (1609–1663). The project proposes the theory that he should be identified as the author behind poet pseudonym Skogekär Bergbo, who published three poetry collections (Thet swenska språketz klagemål, Wenerid, and Fyratijo små wijsor) during the 17th century.




2026–2029, I am a Visiting Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Oslo, as part of the ERC project EpiCentres, led by runologist Alessandro Palumbo. The project aims to identify and analyze so-called ”epigraphic centers” in medieval Scandinavia – areas characterized by a strong epigraphic written culture – and examines how writing practices in Latin and the vernacular developed and influenced one another over time. The project is also constructing a database of all medieval inscriptions using the Latin alphabet, whether in the vernacular or in Latin, from medieval Scandinavia.

Previous research projects

Between 2020 and 2025, I was employed within the Modes of Modification research programme, financed by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (RJ). In this research programme, studied the arrival of Latin in the Nordic region during the early Middle Ages, mainly based on the Latin inscriptions from that period. Together with runologist Alessandro Palumbo (University of Oslo), I have also studied inscriptions that use both runes and the Latin alphabet, and the bilingual epigraphic script culture in the Nordic area during the early Middle Ages.

In 2013–2016, together with literary historian Stefano Fogelberg Rota, I led an interdisciplinary collaborative project on the history of the guidebook focusing on the city of Rome and entitled Topos and Topography – Rome as the Guidebook City. The project was based at the Swedish Institute in Rome, and aimed to examine the origins and development of the guidebook and to identify how the functions and characteristics of the guidebook gene have evolved over time and influenced modern guidebooks. The project was published in the book Rome and the Guidebook Tradition, De Gruyter 2019. We also organised a guidebook exhibition at the Carolina Rediviva Library in Uppsala. Both the research publication and the catalogue of the guidebook exhibition are freely downloadable in digital form (see under Publications). In connection with the project, I also published a popular science book entitled Guide till det medeltida Rom (“Guide to Medieval Rome”), Appell förlag 2020.

From 2008 to 2013, I had a post as a research assistant at the University of Gothenburg. Within this project I worked on a scholarly edition of Sweden’s medieval Latin inscriptions from the 1100s until about 1250. The project was published in Historiska Museets skriftserie 2016. During this period, I also led the international network INSCRIPTA for research on Latin inscriptions (financed by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation – RJ). In 2011, I developed the course Latin Epigraphy (LAT202, 7.5 credits), the first of its kind in the Swedish higher education sector, and it has since been offered every two years in partnership with the Swedish Institute in Rome (and from 2022 also with Uppsala university).

I have also contributed to a history project about Gothenburg’s first professor in Latin, Vilhelm Lundström, and a study trip to Rome that he led in 1909, which eventually sparked the establishment of the Swedish Institute in Rome in the 1920s. In a project funded by the Anna Ahrenberg Foundation, I studied the Gothenburg patron of the arts Anna Ahrenberg and her role in cultural and scholarly exchange between Gothenburg and Rome in the first half of the 1900s – activities pursued by Ahrenberg with Vilhelm Lundström for many years.