Helena Wulff
Helena Wulff is an anthropologist at Stockholm University. Her research interests include expressive cultural form (dance, art, images, text) in a transnational perspective. Key engagements are in the anthropologies of literature and writing. Her recent research was on writing as craft and career in Ireland. Current research evolves around migrant writing in Sweden. She has conducted field studies in Stockholm, London, New York, Frankfurt-am-Main, and Ireland.
-
Books
Monographs
Twenty-Girls-Excitement-Microculture-anthropology/amazon 1988
Ballet across Borders: Career and Culture in the World of Dancers - 1s routledge.com) 1998
Dancing at the Crossroads: Memory and Mobility in Ireland | Berghahn 2007
Rhythms of Writing | An Anthropology of Irish Literature | Helena Wulf (taylorfrancis.com)
2017
Edited volumes
Youth Cultures | A Cross-cultural Perspective | (taylorfrancis.com) with Vered Amit
1995/2022
New Technologies at Work | People, Screens and Social Virtuality | (taylorfrancis.com) with
Christina Garsten 2003
The Emotions: A Cultural Reader - 1st Edition - Routledge (routledge.com) 2007
Ethnographic Practice in the Present | Berghahn with Marit Melhuus and Jon P.
Mitchell 2010
The Anthropologist as Writer: Genres and Contexts in the Twenty-First Century | Berghahn
2016
World Literatures: Exploring the Cosmopolitan-Vernacular Exchange with Stefan
Helgesson, Annika Mörte Alling, and Yvonne Lindqvist Stockholm University Press 2018
Exceptional Experiences: Engaging with Jolting Events in Art and Fieldwork | Berghahn with
Petra Rethmann 2023
Anthropological Approaches to Reading Migrant Writing: Reimagining Ethnographic Methods, Knowledge, and Power (routledge.com) with Deborah Reed-Danahay 2023
Journal articles have appeared in American Anthropologist, Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, Anthropology & Humanism, Body & Society, Choreographic Encounters, Ethnologie française, Ethnography, Identities, Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement (JASHM), Nordic Irish Studies, OtherwiseMag, Social Anthropology, and The Senses & Society. Helena Wulff has written book chapters in many edited volumes, and entries in a number of encyclopedias. Drawing on her research, she also occasionally writes anthropological journalism, as well as autofiction and creative nonfiction.
- Book Series
Palgrave Studies in Literary Anthropology | Book series home (springer.com) with Deborah Reed-Danahay
Dance and Performance Studies Berghahn with Jonathan Skinner
- Autofiction
- Creative Nonfiction
- Anthropological Writing Genres
“Writing anthropology” | Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology (anthroencyclopedia.com) 2021
“Introducing the Anthropologist as Writer: Across and Within Genres”
-
Creative Methods
2023 “Response: Calling for Creative Ethnography,” Cultural Analysis Vol. 21(1): 56-58. https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~culturalanalysis/volume21_1/vol21_1_Response.html
2022 ”Editorial Coda: Autobiography in Anthropology, Then and Now,”
Anthropological Journal of European Cultures Volume 31, No. 2 (2022): v-x doi: 10.3167/ajec.2022.310201
2015 “In Favour of Flexible Forms: Multi-Sited Fieldwork”, in Forum: Re-thinking EuroAnthropology. Social Anthropology, 23(3): 355-357 saas-soca12216.pdf
2012 “Instances of Inspiration: Interviewing Dancers and Writers,” in Jonathan Skinner (ed.),
The Interview: An Ethnographic Approach. London: Routledge, pp. 163-178.
2002 “Yo-yo Fieldwork: Mobility and Time in a Multi-Local Study of Dance in Ireland,”
Anthropological Journal on European Cultures, issue on Shifting Grounds: Experiments in Doing
Ethnography, vol. 11: 117-136.
2000 “Methods for a Multi-Locale Study of Ballet as a Career,” in Vered Amit (ed.), Constructing the Field. London: Routledge, 147-161
- Journal Articles and Book Chapters on Literary and Artistic Production
2023 “’Hammered by the Image’: Exceptional Experiences of Art as Aesthetic Impact,” in Petra
Rethmann and Helena Wulff (eds.), Exceptional Experiences: Engaging with Jolting Events in Art and
Fieldwork. Oxford: Berghahn, pp. 172-188.
2022 ”Ambiguous Arrival: Emotions and Dislocations in the Migrant Encounter with Sweden,”
in Bo G. Ekelund, Adnan Mahmutović and Helena Wulff (eds.), Claiming Space: Locations and
Orientations in World Literature. London: Bloomsbury, 217-235.
2020 ”Foreword,” in Cicilie Fagerlid and Michelle A. Tisdel (eds.), A Literary Anthropology of
Migration and Belonging: Roots, Routes, and Rhizomes. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. vii-xii.
2018 “Disaporic Divides: Location and Orientations of ’Home’ in Pooneh Rohi’s Araben,” in
Stefan Helgesson, Annika Mörte Alling, Yvonne Lindqvist and Helena Wulff (eds.), World
Literatures: Exploring the Cosmopolitan-Vernacular Exchange. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press,
- 119-128.
2018 “Diversifying from Within: Diaspora Writings in Sweden,” in Morten Nielsen and Nigel
Rapport (eds.), The Composition of Anthropology: How Anthropological Texts are Written. London:
Routledge, pp. 122-136.
2018 “Dance, Anthropology of,” The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Edited by Hilary Callan. Oxford: JohnWiley & Sons.
2017 “Stories of the Soil: In the Irish Literary World”, in Diarmuid Ó Giolláin and Martine
Segalen (eds.), Irish Ethnologies. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 141-157.
2017 “Greater than Its Size: Ireland in Literature and Life,” in Ulf Hannerz and Andre Gingrich
(eds.), Small Countries: Structures and Sensibilities. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp.
301-316.
2017 ”Manhattan as a Magnet: Place and Circulation among Young Swedes,” in Virginia R. Dominguez and Jasmin Habib (eds.), America Observed: On an International Anthropology of the United States. Oxford: Berghahn, pp. 31-50.
2015 “The Pains and Peaks of Being a Ballerina in London,” in Ilana Gershon (ed.), A World of
Work: Imagined Manuals for Real Jobs. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 207-220.
2015 “Dance, Anthropology of,” in James D. Wright (ed-in-chief), International Encyclopedia of the
Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Vol. 5. Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 666-670.
2014 “Anthropologist in the Irish Literary World: Reflexivity through Studying Sideways”, in Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Christina Garsten and Shalini Randeria, (eds.). Anthropology Now and Next: Essays in Honor of Ulf Hannerz. New York: Berghahn, pp. 147-161.
2013 “Ethnografiction and Reality in Contemporary Irish Literature,” in Marilyn Cohen (ed.),
Novel Approaches to Anthropology: Contributions to Literary Anthropology. New York City: Lexington
Books, pp. 205-225.
2013 “Dance ethnography,” in Oxford Bibliographies Online. New York: Oxford University Press.
2013 “Ways of Seeing Ireland’s Green: From Ban to the Branding of a Nation,” The
Senses and Society, 9(2): 233-240.
2012“Ballet Culture and the Market: A Transnational Perspective,” in Hélène Neveu-
Kringelbach and Jonathan Skinner (eds.), Dancing Cultures: Globalisation, Tourism and Identity. Oxford: Berghahn, pp. 46-59.
2012 “Color and Cultural Identity in Ireland,” in Marilyn DeLong and Barbara Martinson (eds.),
Color and Design. London: Berg/Bloomsbury, pp. 101-109.
2012 “An Anthropological Perspective on Literary Arts in Ireland,” in Ullrich Kockel, Máiréad
Nic Craith and Jonas Frykman (eds), Blackwell Companion to the Anthropology of Europe. Oxford:
2010 ”Costume for Dance.” Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, West Europe, volume 8:
498-502. London: Berg/Bloomsbury.
2010 “Colm Tóibín as Travel Writer.” Nordic Irish Studies, 9: 109-116.
2009 “Ethnografiction: Irish Relations in the Writing of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne,” in Rebecca Pelan (ed.), Éilís Ní Dhuibhne: Perspectives. Galway: Arlen House, pp. 245-261.
2009 “Ways of Watching: Dance Photography, Performance and Aesthetics.” in Ina-
Maria Greverus and Ute Ritschel (eds.), Aesthetics and Anthropology. Berlin: LIT, pp. 207-221.
2008 “Literary Readings as Performance: On the Career of Contemporary Writers in the New
Ireland,” Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 17: 98-113.
2008 ”Ethereal Expression: Paradoxes of Ballet as a Global Physical Culture,” Ethnography, 9(4):
519-536.
2008 “To Know the Dancer: Formations of Fieldwork in the Ballet World,” in Narmala
Halstead, Eric Hirsch and Judith Okely (eds.), Knowing How to Know: Fieldwork and Ethnographic
Present. Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 75-91.
2007 “Longing for the Land: Emotions, Memory and Nature in Irish Travel Advertisements,”
Identities 14(4): 527-544.
2006 “Experiencing the Ballet Body: Pleasure, Pain, Power,” in Suzel Ana Reily (ed.), The Musical
Human: Rethinking John Blacking's Ethnomusicology in the 21st Century. Aldershot: Ashgate Press, pp.
125-141.
2005 “’High Arts’ and the Market: An Uneasy Partnership in the Transnational World of Ballet,” in David Inglis and John Hughson (eds.), The Sociology of Art. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 171-182.
2005 “Memories in Motion: The Irish Dancing Body,” Body & Society, issue on “the dancing
body,” (ed.) Bryan S. Turner, vol. 11(4): 45-62.
- More Journal Articles and Book Chapters on Literary and Artistic Production
2003 “The Irish Body in Motion: Moral Politics, National Identity and Dance,” in Noel Dyck
and Eduardo P. Archetti (eds.), Sport, Dance and Embodied Identities. London: Berg/Bloomsbury,
- 179-196.
2003 “Steps and Stories about Ireland,” Choreographic Encounters, vol 1: 70-74.
2002 “Aesthetics at the Ballet: Looking at ‘National’ Style, Body and Clothing in the London
Dance World,” in Nigel Rapport (ed.), British Subjects. London: Berg/Bloomsbury, pp. 67-83.
2001 “Dance, Anthropology of,” in Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (eds.), International
Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, pp. 3209-3212. Oxford: Elsevier.
1998 “Perspectives Toward Ballet Performance: Exploring, Repairing and Maintaining Frames,”
in Felicia Hughes-Freeland (ed.), Ritual, Performance, Media. London: Routledge, pp. 104-120.