The Latin phrase that has come to mean one’s old university certainly fits the Speaker of the Riksdag. Andreas Norlén made his first acquaintance with LiU more than 30 years ago as a student on the commercial and business law programme. He returned to defend his doctoral thesis in commercial and business law in 2004. He was named Alumnus of the Year in 2019 and returns annually as a guest lecturer.
“I was awarded my doctorate in 2005, almost 20 years ago to the day. It’s amazing that the university remembers me, I think it’s great to be able to stay in touch over all these years.”
Power and dynamism
Linköping University turns 50 in 2025. Andreas Norlén is following developments closely.
“It’s great to see how the university has grown and developed over the years. What power, dynamism and energy there is. Not least because of the interdisciplinary and cross-subject approach that they have here, which I think will be very fruitful in the future.”
Andreas Norlén gave a lecture entitled “Speaker, Riksdag, academia and democracy”. There he highlighted the vulnerability of democracy – but stated that he is optimistic about both its short and long term prospects.
“Democracy is morally superior, but also better at delivering prosperity to citizens. I believe that democracies have every opportunity to overcome the setbacks that there have been, but it requires hard work from each one of us.”
Angela Woods, Professor of Medical Humanities at Durham University, was also awarded an honorary doctorate at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Celebration of shared vision
"This is a huge honour for me personally, but I see it also as a celebration of a shared vision of the medical humanities as a truly interdisciplinary and collaborative venture that will play an increasingly important role in health research globally."
Angela Woods’ lecture concerned how we are affected by stories about health and illness.
"Narrative remains a key but not uncontested concept in critical medical humanities research — it can illuminate illness experience, as well as the wider cultural frameworks through which distinctions between the 'normal' and 'pathological' are constituted. Our field must now proactively and systematically engage with the challenges AI poses to the ways we use and understand narrative in the context of health."
Angela Woods is the director of one of the world’s largest research institutes in the medical humanities. Over the years, she has built a strong collaboration with the Centre for Medical Humanities and Bioethics (CMHB) at LiU.
"One could wish for no finer collaborators than Kristin Zeiler, Ericka Johnson and the wider team at CMHB. They are working at the critical cutting edge of our field in ways that are as generous and imaginative as they are intellectually rigorous. I am very excited about the projects and connections we are already pursuing between CMHB and the Institute for Medical Humanities, and for all the collaborations to come!"