Barbro Klein

Director emerita of SCAS. Professor of Ethnology

Barbro Klein is Director emerita of the Collegium and one of its Permanent Fellows. She is also Professor of Ethnology at Stockholm University. She received her Ph.D. in Folklore Studies and Anthropology at Indiana University in 1970 and has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, University of Bergen, Stockholm University, and other institutions. She also serves or has served on the editorial boards of Journal of American Folklore, Journal of Folklore Research, Ethnologia Scandinavica, Journal of Northern Studies, and other periodicals. She serves or has served as panelist or in other capacities at Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the Swedish Research Council, the Academy of Finland, the National Heritage Board, and at other foundations and councils. She has been a member of the Executive Board of the American Folklore Society and is currently a member of the Board of Point Sud in Bamako. During 1997–2000, she codirected a multi-national project on “Folklore, Heritage Politics, and Ethnic Diversity”.

Klein has written extensively on oral narration, rituals, museum displays, and other forms of expressive culture in complex multi-ethnic settings, primarily in the United States and northern Europe. She has also worked on broad methodological issues and on the entangled disciplinary histories pertaining to folkloristics, ethnology, anthropology, museology, and related fields.

In addition to numerous articles, her publications include: Legends and Folk Beliefs in a Swedish-American Community: A Study in Folklore and Acculturation (1980); Swedish Folk Art – All Tradition is Change (edited with Mats Widbom, 1994); Från erfarenhet till text: om kulturvetenskaplig reflexivitet (From experience to text: on reflexivity in the cultural sciences, with Billy Ehn, 1994); Gatan är vår! Ritualer på offentliga platser (The street is ours! Rituals in public places, edited 1995); Creating Diversities: Folklore, Religion, and the Politics of Heritage (edited with Stein Mathisen and Anna- Leena Siikala, 2004); Narrating, Doing, Experiencing: Nordic Folkloristic Perspectives (edited with Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhoj and Ulf Palmenfelt, 2006); and The Benefit of Broad Horizons: Intellectual and Institutional Preconditions for a Global Social Science (edited with Hans Joas, 2010).

Barbro Klein is Fellow of the American Folklore Society and Member of the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy; in 2006 this academy awarded her a major prize from the Jöran Sahlgren Fund. In 2000, she received the festschrift Folklore, Heritage Politics, and Ethnic Diversity (edited by Pertti Anttonen).