Nils-Arvid Bringéus:
Carl Wilhelm von Sydow: A Swedish Pioneer in Folklore. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia (Academia Scientiarum Fennica). 2009. 272 pp.
ISBN 978-951-41-1050-4 (hardback)
ISBN 978-951-41-1051-1 (paperback)
30 euros (hardback)
25 euros (paperback)
In this book, Professor Emeritus Nils-Arvid Bringéus provides a detailed analysis of the founder of folklore research in Sweden, Professor Carl Wilhelm von Sydow (1878–1952). We are introduced to a fascinating personality and able to follow his persevering struggle to gain acceptance for a new academic discipline. Von Sydow took a highly active interest in international cooperation, not least within the field of folktale research. He taught at both Lund and Uppsala universities, establishing a taxonomy within the study of folklore that has been of great importance. The book concludes with a causerie written by the actor Max von Sydow about his father, and a bibliography by Jan-Öjvind Swahn—one of von Sydow’s last students.
NILS-ARVID BRINGÉUS (b. 1926) was Professor of European Ethnology at Lund University from 1967 to 1991. His academic production comprises both material and social culture as folklore. He has an extensive international network of contacts and has had an honorary doctorate of philosophy conferred on him by the universities of Bergen, Åbo and Münster as well as honorary doctorate of theology by Lund University. He is one of the advocates of ethnology with a culture-historical orientation and his comprehensive production includes a number of works with a personal- and subject-historical approach.