The Swedish Association for American Studies (SAAS) is an inspiring academic network that encourages scholarship in the multidisciplinary field of American Studies. SAAS seeks to develop a critical understanding of the role, place, and meaning of the United States and North America. In Sweden, research about the US/America is conducted in many different disciplines; SAAS thus functions as an important forum for interdisciplinary exchange and encounters between American Studies scholars.
- Swedish-American Newspaper Database Update
The database for Swedish-American historical newspapers has been updated with hundreds of new digitized titles. The update will provide new avenues of research into new titles, deepening our understanding of the Swedish-American media landscape as well as the everyday lives of Swedish-American labor activists, evangelicals, temperance activists, and much much more.
Hundreds of Swedish-language newspapers were published in North America from 1850 onward, catering to the continent’s Swedish immigrant communities. This free, searchable archive contains over 1.3 million digitized newspaper pages from Swedish American newspaper titles published across the United States and Canada between 1851 and 2007.
This collection contains 348 publications comprising 146,309 issues and 1,328,657 pages.
Swedish American Newspapers was created through a partnership of the Minnesota Historical Society, Kungliga biblioteket (National Library of Sweden), the American Swedish Institute, and the Swenson Swedish American Research Center at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
Access the database and scroll the newspapers here:
- Migration, Modernity, and Meaning: Studies of Sweden and America, Essays in Honor of Dag Blanck
The Swedish American Historical Society has recently published Migration, Modernity, and Meaning: Studies of Sweden and America, Essays in Honor of Dag Blanck. The book is a compilation of 46 essays by 49 contributors in honor of longtime Society Board member and academic Dag Blanck. The book, or festschrift, honors Blanck’s contributions to the field of North American studies in Sweden and Swedish Studies in North America over his long career. Due to the breadth of Dag’s research interests, the book also serves as a survey of the current state of the academic field.
- Myth, Migration and Mobility: SAAS Conference 2026
The Swedish Association for American Studies will hold its 13th conference at the Swedish Emigrant Institute in Växjö, from lunch on Thursday, October 8, 2026 to lunch on Friday, October 9, 2026. We are honored to feature Gunlög Fur, Professor at Linnaeus University, as the keynote speaker.
Read more about the conference here.
- 2025 Newsletter
The 2025 SAAS Newsletter is now published and accessible here. Documenting the state of the field of North American Studies in Sweden, the newsletter covers research, published works, and teaching during the year of 2024.