Research

Research leadershipProjects as PI and co-PI

012020–2025 · Co-PI, with Professor Mette Birkedal Bruun

STAY HOME: The Domestic Sphere in the Shadow of Pandemic

An interdisciplinary project studying the consequences of lockdowns for the home and family in Denmark.

Funding: The Carlsberg Foundation, Semper Ardens
Output: 3 PhD dissertations, 8 academic articles, 1 exhibition

022024 · PI, with Professor Klaus Petersen

Legitimacy Contested: The Past and Future of the Nordic Model

An interdisciplinary research project examining the distinct Nordic welfare states from a variety of historical and contemporary perspectives, including close collaboration with NGOs, fiction authors and international scholars.

Funding: The A.P. Møller Foundation, Nordic Humanities Center
Output: 4 monographs, 12 academic articles, 10 articles in public media, 10 public events

032018–2023 · PI

The Politics of Family Secrecy

An international, interdisciplinary project examining the history of family secrecy and its intersections with the development of the Danish welfare state in the twentieth century.

Funding: Independent Research Fund Denmark, Sapere Aude
Output: 1 PhD dissertation, 1 monograph, 1 journal special issue, 15 academic articles, 1 exhibition, 12 articles in public media

Keynotes & invited lecturesA selection

Keynote
Play, Emotions, and the Search for Children’s Authentic Selves
ETH Zürich · August 26, 2026 · Global history conference, Chair for the History of the Modern World
Invited lecture
Man on the Margin. Gendered Experiences in the Welfare State, 1930–2000
Birkbeck, University of London · March 12, 2026
Keynote
Følelsernes historie: Muligheder, udfordringer og redskaber
University of Oslo · October 24, 2024
Invited lecture
Writing Histories of Family Violence. Ethical and Methodological Challenges
University of California, Davis · May 6, 2024 · Department of History & Women’s and Gender History
Keynote
How to Write an Emotional History of Family Violence
University of Copenhagen · April 30, 2023 · Centre for Gender, Sexuality and Difference, 40th anniversary
Invited lecture
The Ambiguous Politics of Love
University of Münster · June 29, 2021 · Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”
Invited lecture & panelist
Childhood and Youth
Tampere University · March 10, 2021 · HEX – History of Experiences
Keynote
Emotional Frontiers at an Imperial Encounter: Childhood, Parenthood, and Christian Mission in South India
Shiv Nadar University, Delhi · January 6, 2020
Invited lecture
Raising the Universal Child?
University of Iceland, Reykjavík · March 20, 2017
Invited lecture
Christianity, Love, and the Increasingly Powerful Child?
Magdalen College, Oxford · July 7, 2016
Invited lecture
Marital Dissolution and Emotional Frontiers
University of California, Berkeley · April 11, 2016 · Department of Scandinavian

Conferences organizedA selection

Relational Rupture. Emotional Histories
Co-organizer · Stanford University · May 2024
Divorce – Historical, Cultural and Emotional Perspectives
Co-organizer · New-York Historical Society · March 2023
The Politics of Family Secrecy
Main organizer and host · University of Copenhagen · January 2021
Ugly Intimacies
Organizer and co-host · UC Berkeley · May 2016
Theorising Intimacy and Emotions in History, Medieval to Contemporary Perspectives
Co-organizer · Griffith University, Brisbane · February 2013