26.5. SELMA 10 YEARS – Celebratory seminar

15.15 Opening words by Hanna Meretoja & Maarit Leskelä-Kärki, directors of SELMA

15.30-16.15 Keynore lecture: The Sense of a Beginning – Positioning, experientiality and support for a master narrative by Matti Hyvärinen, Research Director, Sosiology and Narrative Theory

16.15 Roundtable: The Significance of Narratives in the Current World Political Situation
Chair: Hanna Meretoja
Participants: Pertti Grönholm, European and World History; Benita Heiskanen, North American Studies; Anne Heimo, Folkloristics; Tiina Lintunen, Political History; Liisa Merivuori, Comparative Literature

17.15-17.30 short break

17.30-18.30 Lecture and performance: …grief plays me like a broken string instrument by Astrid Swan, songwriter, performer, writer and researcher

18.30-20.00 Snacks and drinks

Keynote speakers:

Matti Hyvärinen, PhD, is a Research Director and a previous vice-director of the Research Centre Narrare (2014–2023) at the Tampere University. As a sociologist and political scientist by education, he has studied the conceptual history of narrative, master and counter narratives, and the narrative turns. Recently, he has co-edited the special issue “Considering political counter-narrative” for Narrative Works. He serves as an Editorial Board member in Narrative Inquiry and Narrative works.

The Sense of a Beginning: Positioning, experientiality and support for a master narrative

“Recent discussions have occasionally dramatized the role of emotionally charged political narratives. For example, narratives are rather exceptional in the Finnish Parliament. Furthermore, the idea that powerful and harmful political narratives would be “melodramatic” needs re-evaluation. My point in case is a lengthy article in the monthly supplement of Helsingin Sanomat, the leading newspaper in Finland. In the issue of 3rd February 2024, the paper published editor Anu Nousiainen’s long, narrative article “Lokakuun seitsemäs” (The 7th of October) about the brutal attack of Hamas to Israel. I analyse the article from the perspective of experiential and emotional positioning. The reader is carefully positioned within the peaceful, liberal, and utterly beautiful kibbutz of Be’er with immersive storytelling. The dramatized beginning — the stark contrast between named, individualized and familiar Jews and the armed, anonymous and brutal Palestinian attackers — functions as a metaphoric key to understand the history of Israel-Palestinian conflict, and a justification of the master narrative of Israeli state. The ideological effect is achieved by using realistic techniques and neutral-sounding language with constant positioning. In a way, the end of the story does not matter so much, since dramatizing the beginning and presenting it as the emblem of the conflict does the whole work. The role of beginnings in narrative theory will be discussed.”

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Astrid Swan (Joutseno) is a songwriter, performer, writer and researcher. Since her debut in 2005 she has published seven solo albums as well as a series of collaborative releases. Swan’s solo records have been released in Finland, USA, England, Germany and Scandinavia. Over the years she has performed on multiple tours in Europe and the USA. Swan’s album From the Bed and Beyond won the music award, Teosto-palkinto, in 2018. The album, which describes the experience of becoming seriously ill and encountering the figure of death, was shortlisted for the Nordic Music Prize and nominated at the Emma Awards (her second nomination for a Finnish Grammy.) In 2021 Swan released her latest solo album D/other, which is an accomplished amalgamation of her thematic songwriting over her career, sonic production and her work with the long-term accompanying musicians in her band. In 2019 Swan co-composed, co-produced, recorded and mixed the SWAN/KOISTINEN EP (Soliti), a collaboration with singer/songwriter Stina Koistinen (Color Dolor).

In 2021 Joutseno became an award-winning Doctor of Philosophy (University of Helsinki, gender studies). She is a visiting scholar at Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, University of Oxford 2024-2025 and works on the Finnish Research Council project Counter-Narratives of Cancer: Shaping Narrative Agency, at University of Turku. Joutseno’s research focus is the grief of the dying and cancer grief. She examines these in life-writing (literary, musical, digital, memoir, film, visual art). Joutseno is also working on grief as a cultural affect, researching the lives and art of violinist Kerttu Wanne (1905-1963) and pianist Astrid Joutseno (1899-1962).

…grief plays me like a broken string instrument

“This performance of music, writing and research presents self-life-writing as a practice and as theory. Traversing the liminal spaces between making art and knowledge production––what I have termed processual connectivity––I ask what is writing when selves become mediators and lives are transmuting devices. Grief, the focus of my current research, will be the camera-shy star of this show.”