Suchergebnisse

Matti Kurikka (1863–1915) is a multi-dimensional and controversial character in Finnish history. He was a playwright, a journalist, a socialist, and a theosophist, as well as a speaker for sexual emancipation and women's rights. Kurikka was born in Ingria, and his activities spanned not only Finland, but also Australia and North America, in both of which he led utopian communities. This biographical study explores Kurikka as a literary and political figure and a builder of utopias, whose life opens fascinating views on the societal and cultural currents of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book critically re-evaluates earlier research on Kurikka and highlights forgotten phases of his life by using new source materials found in three continents. The sources include digitized newspapers and periodicals, Kurikka's plays and non-fictional books, oral history, and political cartoons.

Alex Matson (1888–1972) is an important Finnish literary critic and essayist, whose literary reviews and collections of essays have made a vital contribution to the development of Finland's postwar literary generation. Born in Finland as the son of a sailor, Matson moved as a young child with his family to Hull in England, where he went to school. In the 1910s, he moved back to Finland, where he at first established himself as painter associated with the expressionist November Group, an important Finnish artistic movement at the time. In the interbellum, he moved from fine arts to literature. In the 1920s and 1930s, he published several novels, but more important was his work as transmitter of international literary ideas to Finland. Together with his first wife, Kersti Bergroth, he edited the literary journal Sininen kirja (""The Blue Book""; 1927–1930), which was inspired by the writings of John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield. Sininen kirja is the most international literary journal in Finnish history to date and introduced Finland to the most significant modernist writers of the first half of the 20th century (Gottfried Benn, Jean Cocteau, Alfred Döblin, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Paul Valéry, Virginia Woolf).
During the Second World War, Matson worked for the State Communications Agency, which was responsible for disseminating relevant information about Finland to other nations and for informing Finns of relevant developments abroad. It was also tasked with studying the prevailing mood among the population in Finland. In Matson's unpublished wartime diaries, one can see the first symptoms of a shift in Finnish culture away from Germany and towards Anglo-Saxon culture.
From the 1940s onwards, Matson recommended new English and American novels as a part of his work as reader for Finnish publishing houses, and he also translated works by Joyce, Hemingway and Steinbeck. With the help of a network of international literary critics, Matson became acquainted with New Criticism, which he introduced to Finland before it became established among academic researchers. He was often critical of academic literary studies, but his seminal essay works Romaanitaide (""On the Prose Novel""; 1947), John Steinbeck (1948), Kaksi mestaria (""Two Masters"", on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky; 1950) as well as his impressive conversational skills were instrumental in introducing knowledge about the principles of the prose novel to several authors (including Väinö Linna, Lauri Viita, and Hannu Salama), and contributed to their views of literature. Matson emphasized the importance of reading and understanding high-quality literature for the wellbeing of society.

The book approaches the history of Finnish development cooperation through the experiences of development aid workers. At its core is a small group of Finns (experts and officials from different fields) who have worked with international development aid in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Their memories and experiences, together with diverse archival material offer an interesting window into the world of development (cooperation), or "Aidland", from the 1960s to the turn of the millennium.
The research focuses on the personal motives and experiences of Finnish aid workers from the 1960s to the 2000s. The book offers perspectives on the historical construction of Aidland since the 1940s and on the gradual integration of Finland and the Finns into its structures. It describes the mindset of the first two generations of aid workers and the factors that made them interested in developing countries. The book follows their education, their first contacts with Aidland, adaptation to work and conditions, returning home and the challenges that come with it. The study gives the reader a view of the power positions, hierarchies and contradictions in Aidland and development cooperation, which at times led Finns to reassess their motives and justify to themselves the meaningfulness of the entire undertaking. Through their experiences, the book also deals with the less-known side of development cooperation, such as corruption, prejudices, and opposition to development projects, as well as their occasionally unwanted consequences in partner/recipient countries. It also sheds light on the effects of the Aidland experience on an individual's worldview and identity.
The book is an academic study suitable for a wide audience, from university students to ordinary readers interested in development cooperation. The book helps to understand both the history of development and the construction of multi-level connections of Finnish society with the countries of the Global South. It is therefore also ideally suited for readers interested in the development of Finland's internationalization in the late twentieth century. For its part, the book contributes to wider public debates on development cooperation.

"Gendered and sexualized abuse and other forms of violence are visibly present in the culture of the third millennium. Especially bodies that are gendered as female are – both dead and alive – objects of multiple forms of abuse and violence in the texts and imageries of contemporary culture. Men, on the other hand, are often represented as abusive towards women and as the violent gender or, as targets of other men's violence. Structural violence has also an impact on many areas of everyday life, and it is materialized in, for example discrimination and inequality. Gender and Violence: The Ethics and Politics of Reading scrutinizes gendered violence as a complex phenomenon of contemporary culture. The authors study the ways in which ways representations of violence can be read, viewed and received. They also discuss what kind of politics the violent representations implement and actualize, and how they affect their audience.
Gender and Violence takes a critical stance on the intersections of gender, power, and violence in literature, film, television and the internet. The analysis focuses on, for example, sci-fi, Nordic Noir and North American comedy series, poems, young adult literature (YA) and nationalist blog texts. The book presents both Finnish and international academic discussions, in which researchers in the fields of gender studies, arts and literature, and cultural studies challenge contemporary English abstract 279 understanding of gender, sexuality, power, and violence. Moreover, Gender and Violence provides tools for critical discussions on violence and in-depth scrutiny about its cost on all of us.
Gender and Violence is an anthology of academic research articles. It works well as an academic textbook, but it also provides timely and new knowledge for everyone interested in questions of gender and violence – phenomena that touch upon all of us."