2025
March 27: Liv Nilsson Stutz gave an introductory lecture to the Workshop menselijke resten at the Amsterdam University Medical Center, and the Museum Vrolik, with representatives from museums in the Netherlands.
February 21: Liv Nilsson Stutz participated in The Human Remains Digital Library (HURDL) Launch Event at the University of Liverpool as part of the panel discussion/session 4: Belief and Practice.
2024
December 5: Liv Nilsson Stutz participates in the seminar “The Art Academy and the Human Remains. A seminar about anatomy, ethics and history” at the Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm. A recording of the event can be viewed here.
October 17-18: Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the keynote Between Objects of Science and Lived Lives – toward new professional ethics in the care for human remains in collections and research at the conference for the Nordic Network for Human Remains, at Lund University.
October 16: Liv Nilsson Stutz participated in a panel talk with Jenny Bergman, and moderated by Pro-Vice-Chancellor Ann Kristin Wallengren about the anatomical collection at Lund University, organized by Lund University. A recording of the event can be viewed here.
October 11-12: Liv Nilsson Stutz participated in Millie-Christine Day in celebration of the legacy of Mille-Christine McKoy in Whiteville, North Carolina, USA where she presents the public talk “Stolen Bodies, Stolen Lives. Millie-Christine, Kristina Larsdotter, and what we can learn from studying global microhistories of racism, sexism, and ableism.” in collaboration with hiphop artist Napoleon Maddox and his performance piece Twice the First Time.
October 2: Rita Peyroteo Stjerna presented at Talks of the Past (ToP) Open Seminar at The Center for the human Past at Uppsala University: Toward Professional Ethics of Ancestral Human Remains Research: from Tissue to Biomolecules.
September 28: Liv Nilsson Stutz participated in a panel talk with Terje Östigård and Peter Skoglund at the Gothenburg Book Fair about the possibilities and challenges of decolonization of archaeology and museums.
September 25-26: Liv Nilsson Stutz participated in the Musund conference at the National Museum in Copenhagen and presented the paper Professionell etik och mänskliga kvarlevor i samlingar och forskning.
September 17: Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the talk Human Remains in Museums, What is the right thing to do? and discussed the project at the Museum Lolland-Falster.
August 28-31: European Association of Archaeologists in Rome. The project organized a panel discussion entitled “What Are the Next Challenges for the Professional Ethics of Human Remains?” and Liv Nilsson Stutz and Nicole Crescenzi present the paper Is the Museum a Safe Space for the Dead? Analysis of how exhibition choices affect our understanding of human remains, in collaboration with Nicole Crescenzi, in the session Curating Archaeology? How to exhibit the past.
August 26: Liv Nilsson Stutz, Rita Peyroteo Stjerna and Nicole Crescenzi visited the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology and a conversation with the Director Elisabeth Vallazza to discuss decisions regarding the exhibition and curation of “Ötzi – the Ice Man.”
June 25: Liv Nilsson Stutz presented a keynote talk entitled “Between Objects of Science and Lived Lives: ethical challenges and responsibilities in the care for human remains in museums and science” at the workshop Excavación, conservación y ehibición de cuerpos momificados en torno a la cultura Chinchorro. Desafios éticos y técnico desde la gestión del patrimonio mundial, organized by the Servicio Nacional del Patrimonio Cultural, in Arica, Chile, location of the UNESCO World Heritage of Settlement and Artificial Mummification of the Chinchorro Culture in the Arica and Parinacota Region. The workshop, including this paper, is available on Youtube.
June 19: Broadcast of an interview with Liv Nilsson Stutz by Howard Williams on Archaeodeath. Significant parts of the interview, which is devoted to the archaeology of death, revolves around professional ethics and the Ethical Entanglement project.
May 7: Rita Peyroteo Stjerna and Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the paper “The Ethical Entanglements of Human Biomolecules” at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, Stockholm University.
March 15: Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the keynote “Repatriation of Human Remains. 21st Century Ethics and Practice” at the workshop Indigenous and Community Archaeologies: Comparative Dialogue, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University.
February 8: Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the paper “Människa eller föremål? Hur hanterar vi mänskliga kvarlevor från arkeologiska kontexter?” at the conference Arkeologi i Sydost. Vart är vi på väg? Linnaeus University and Kalmar County Museum.
2023
December, 8: The Ethical Entanglements team met with the reference group to present and discuss progress and results, at Nordiska Museet.
November 2023: Liv Nilsson Stutz participated in episode 1 of the TV program Historiskt Eftersnack, to discuss the Stone Age Segment of the big TV production Historien om Sverige. In this segment she also discusses research ethics with regards to human remains.
October 26-27: Symposium for the Nordic Network for Human Remains, at Arkivcentrum Syd and Lund University, in Lund. Liv Nilsson Stutz is part of the organisation committee and will moderate two round table discussions: 1. What is the value of collections of human remains? This panel explored the broader topic of the value of these collections for science, pedagogy and history in a time when they are increasingly questioned. Are they valuable? And if so, how? and, 2. Accession and deaccession. What are our current challenges? This panel talk will discuss the responsibility (and cost) of accession and deaccession, and touch on the connections to repatriation and (re)burial.
October 12-13: Symposium ‘Privacy and Death: Past and Present’ at the Center for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Rita Peyroteo Stjerna and Liv Nilsson Stutz present the paper The new frontiers of postmortem privacy. Negotiating the research ethics of human remains in the era of the Third Science Revolution in Archaeology. Nicole Crescenzi presents the paper Human remains and privacy – a contemporary bias?
September 27-30: Writing retreat (the whole team) in Tideswell, UK.
September 25-26: Visit to the University of Liverpool (the whole team) for a workshop with the project The Human Remains: Digital Library of British Mortuary Science and Investigation, directed by Dr Ruth Nugent.
September 19-21: Materiality and Virtuality. Entanglements of Material and Virtual Worlds in Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture, at the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture in Krems, Austria. Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the keynote “Cadavers, Dead Bodies, and Human Biomaterials – The sliding scale of human remains in mortuary ritual, cultural heritage, and research ethics.“
September 13-16: ISBA 10 – New Horizons in Biomolecular Archaeology, Tartu, Estonia. Rita Peyroteo Stjerna presented the paper Researchers’ Perspectives on the Ethics of Human Remains: from tissue to biomolecules.
September 5-7: Problematic Bodies: Exhumation from medieval to modern. Workshop at the University of Liverpool, Organised by The Human Remains: Digital Library of British Mortuary Science and Investigation Project. Sarah Tarlow participated in several panels.
August 30-September 2: European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meetning, Belfast. Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the paper Handling Liminality. A Survey of Attitudes to Human Remains in Swedish Museums, Sarah Tarlow presented the paper Sentenced to Display: Museums Ethics and the Human Remains of Criminals, and Rita Peyroteo Stjerna presented the paper The Multiple Ethics of Biomolecular Research on Human Remains: Researchers’ Perspectives, all in the session “From What Things Are to What Thing Ought to Be: Ethical Concerns on Archaological and Forensic Human Remains.” Nicole Crescenzi acted as a discussant for the roundtable “Roundtable session of the EAA Community on the Illicit Trade in Cultural Material”
June 6-7: NUME, IX Ciclo di Studi Medievali 2023, Florence. Nicole Crescenzi presents the paper “La musealizzazione dei resti umani di Leopoli-Cencelle (VT)”.
May 11-14: Liv Nilsson Stutz attended the American Association for the History of Medicine Annual Meeting in Ann Arbor, MI. She chaired the panel Historical medical collections, human biomaterials and remains: Politics, ethics, practices, history.
May 11-12: Sarah Tarlow and Nicole Crescenzi attended the 23rd Cambridge Heritage Symposium “Encountering Human Remains: Heritage Issues and Ethical Considerations.” Nicole presented the poster: “Exhibiting human remains in museums. An historical, ethical, institutional issue.”
March 26-29: Liv Nilsson Stutz and Rita Peyroteo Stjerna travel with LNUC Concurrences to Bruxellles on the study trip Decolonisation in the Heart of Europe, where we, among other things, will visit the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren.
March 3: Liv Nilsson Stutz presents the project to the seminar in Medical Ethics, Lund University: How do we care for the long dead? A presentation of the research project “Ethical Entanglements. The care for human remains in museums and research”
February 13-16: Visit to Edinburgh. Liv Nilsson Stutz visits The National Museum of Scotland, Surgeon’s Hall and the Anatomical Musem at the University of Edinburgh. She also gives a lecture in the course Social Bioarcaheology at the University of Edinburgh.
January: Rita Peyroteo Stjerna joined the Scientific Committee for Ethical matters in biomolecular archaeology at ISBA10 “New Horizons in Biomolecular Archaeology”. ISBA10 is organized by the University of Tartu, Estonia and will take place on the 13th–16th September 2023.
2022
December 2: The museum of Mediterranean and Mid Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm. Liv Nilsson Stutz participated in a panel discussion: How do Museums handle mummies?
November 17: Rita Peyroteo Stjerna attended the webinar on aDNA Research and Research Integrity organised by the Norwegian Committee for Research Ethics on human Remains. This event focused on ethical challenges in ancient DNA research of archaeological museum collections and can be watched here.
November 14-18: Visits to the Netherlands. Sarah Tarlow and Liv Nilsson Stutz visited the Vrolik Museum in Amsterdam and Body Worlds Amsterdam. On Nov 17 Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the project in a workshop at the University of Groningen. Liv Nilsson Stutz also visited the University Museum in Groningen.
August 31 – September 3: European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meetning, Budapest. The project researchers organised the session: Human Remains: Between Objects of Science and Lived Lives. Toward a New Ethics for Human Remains in Archaeology. Liv Nilsson Stutz, Sarah Tarlow and Hayley Mickleburgh all presented aspects of their research in separate papers.
August 23: Seminar about Research Ethics and report on the progress of the project at Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Stockholm.
May 19-21: Einstein Forum (Potsdam) Conference The Dignity of the Dead. Liv Nilsson Stutz participates in a round table discussion Exposing the Dead. Human Remains on Display, and presents a talk: Embodied Rituals and Ritualized Bodies – Making Sense of Death.
May 16: the Annual Network Meeting for curators of archaeological collections, Middelburg, the Netherlands. Hayley Mickleburgh presented on the ethics of curating human remains and lead discussions with curators.
May 12: the Dutch National Heritage Agency, Amersfoort, the Netherlands. Hayley Mickleburgh participated in a Round table discussion on ethics and human remains
May 2-4: Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren, Belgium) Workshop Museums, sustainability, collections. Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the Keynote for the panel Sensitive Collections: Human bodies. Human remains. The bones at the center of the decolonization debate.
April 7: Workshop Contract Archaeology, Human Remains, and Ethics in 2022 at Teleborg Castle, Växjö. The workshop was organised in collaboration with Ina Thegen, graduate Student in Archaeology at Aarhus University and guest researcher at Linnaues University Center for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial studies. Concurrences sponsored the workshop.
March 29: Seminar on Ethics at Karolinska Institutet. Liv Nilsson Stutz participated with the presentation Antropologiska perspektiv på mänskliga kvarlevor i samlingar/Anthropological perspectives on human remains in museums, and in the panel discussion. A summary can be found here.
March 10: Seminar at the Department of Arcaheology and Ancient History, Lund University. Ethical Entanglements. The caring for human remains in museums and research.
March 2: Lunchtime seminar for the Society of Archaeologists in Iceland, Fornleifastofnun Íslands ses. Humans in museums. A study of the collections of human remains in museums, and the people who curate them.
January 26-27: Meeting with the research project reference group at the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm.
2021
Nov 4: The National Committee for Research Ethics on Human Remains (SKJ) (Norway). Seminar (Oslo): Return of Human Remains? Practices, Implications and ethical issues. Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the Keynote: Repatriation of human remains as decolonizing strategy and activism. Drawing from experiences and contemplating new challenges.
Oct 19: Visit to the Östergötland Museum. Liv Nilsson Stutz visited with the team preparing the new permanent exhibition to discuss the different dimensions of exhibiting human remains and the pedagogical dimensions of human remains in museums.
May 24-25: Researching Nordic Colonialism – Past, Present, Future. Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the paper Exceptional, ahead, or behind? Swedish museums and their relationships to human remains.
March 24: Liv Nilsson Stutz presented Ethical Entanglements at a seminar at the Swedish History Museum.
February 17-18: NCK Spring conference Decolonizing Heritage from a Nordic Perspective. Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the paper Repatriation as a strategy for decolonization. Experiences from an international perspective.
January 27-28: Liv Nilsson Stutz acted as a closing dicussant for the conference DigiDeath at the University of Chester. Read more here.
2020
December 18: Liv Nilsson Stutz participated in a K-samtal organized by the Swedish National Heritage Board on the topic of how Swedish museums handle human remains. The event was a conversation between Liv and Estelle Lazer (University of Sydney), and moderated by Kicki Eldh. Summary and sound file here.
November 10-11: Annual Meeting for the Nordic Network for human Remains, organized at the Museum for World Cultures, Gothenburg. Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the paper: What can we show? A comparative analysis of attitudes to the exhibition of human remains in the US and the Nordic countries. Link to access video from the presentations
October 13. The Norwegian National Research Ethics Committees Webinar: Return of Human Remains? Practices, Implications and Ethical Issues. Liv Nilsson Stutz presented the Keynote Address: Can Repatriation be Problematized? Should it be? Theoretical Challenges and Political Choices. Link to video of conference.
Ethical Entanglements 