Research seminar 20/10: Invisible forces

Our next meeting takes place on Wednesday 20 October, from 14:15-15:45 (Eastern European Summer Time, UTC+3) on Zoom.

Invisible forces: contact with the supernatural in two languages

Participants in the research project “Invisible forces: contact with the supernatural in two languages (funded by Svenska kulturfonden, 2019-2022) will present ongoing research and preliminary results. On this occasion we will focus on the construction of authority in different discourses which are reflected in writing but are connected to oral traditions. After a brief presentation of the project as a whole, Joonas Ahola (University of Helsinki) opens with a theoretical discussion of the concept of communication in relation to the supernatural. Jesse Barber (University of Helsinki) compares the Norse god Odin with the Finnish hero Väinämöinen. Karolina Kouvola (University of Helsinki) analyzes writings about magical healing in Ostrobothnian newspapers in the early 20th century. Kendra Willson (University of Turku) focuses on the debate surrounding the Vörå runic inscriptions and the epistemic and authority crisis that surrounded the finds in the 1970s and 1980s.

Please, contact Klaus Kurki (kleiku@utu.fi) for further details (Zoom-links).

Welcome!