Past Events – 2023

MARCH

Raha Sabet Sarvestany, Postdoctoral Researcher, Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS)
Riikka Taavetti, University Lecturer, Gender Studies, University of Turku

**

8th March, Culture, Sustainability and Social Change Seminar

14.15–16:00, Main Building, Säästöpankkisali, University of Turku

Thematics Talk Together -seminar series addresses topical and interesting themes from the different points of view of the six strategic research and education profiles of the University of Turku. The theme of the seminar series for the academic year 2022–2023 is Sustainability.

The theme of the next seminar is Culture, Sustainability and Social Change. Culture plays a key role in sustainability. Sustainability transformation entails profound changes to the social, political, economic and cultural structures, worldviews, and ways of life. It also requires us to rethink our theoretical models and conceptions as well as their practical implications. How can we move towards more sustainable societies and futures? What kinds of social and cultural changes or preservations do we need in order to live in a more sustainable manner? How should we rethink our conceptions of the “good life”, and the associated institutions and imaginaries, in the sustainability transformation?

Researcher Paavo Järvensivu from BIOS Research Unit will open the event with a keynote speech on Cultural Thinking in a Sustainability Transformation. Järvensivu has written a book which merges economics, ecological and cultural research, called Rajattomasti rahaa niukkuudessa [Endless Money in Scarcity]. At the BIOS Research Unit he has dealt particularly with the practices and developmental paths of public and private economy.

**

14th March, Life-Writing-käsitetyöpaja (in Finnish)

3 to 5 pm, University of Turku, Arcanum ARC229 and Zoom

Käsitetyöpajassa pohditaan käsitteen life-writing käyttöä eri tieteenalojen näkökulmista ja osana suomalaista tutkimuskenttää. Pohdimme yhdessä erilaisia tapoja suomentaa käsite sekä sen erilaisia määrittely- ja käyttötapoja. Tilaisuus on avoin kaikille kiinnostuneille. Voit tulla vain kuuntelemaan tai osallistua keskusteluun kertomalla, miten olet itse käyttänyt käsitettä tutkimuksessasi. Tervetuloa mukaan!

15.15 Hanna Meretoja: Avaussanat ja kertomuksen tutkijan pohdintoja elämänkirjoittamisesta
15.25 Astrid Joutseno: Life Writing: Elämäkirjoitus ja käsitteen sukupuolentutkimuksellinen tulkinta
15.40 Päivi Kosonen: Elämänkerronta (Life Writing) omaelämäkerran lajihistorioitsijan näkökulmasta
15.55 Maarit Leskelä-Kärki: Kulttuurihistorioitsija elämänkerronnan äärellä
16.10-17 Keskustelua
17-18 Juotavaa ja pientä syötävää

FEBRUARY

2nd – 3rd February, Out of the USSR: Travelling Women, Travelling Memories

University of Turku, organised by the research project Texts on the Move: Reception of Women’s Writing in Finland and Russia 1840–2020 (Emil Aaltonen Foundation)

More information HERE.
Registration to the conference HERE. Notice that the registration ends on January 21.

Travelling has always been connected with fundamental social and political changes taking place in societies. Throughout history, one of the countries that people have chosen to leave, move away or have been expelled from, but also a country which they have been going back to, is Russia/the Soviet Union. There is an obvious link between the large transformations that have taken place in Russia since the time of perestroika in the 1990s until the ongoing war in Ukraine and the restrictions of civil rights such as freedom of speech, and the increased mobility out of Russia.

The conference takes these transformations as starting points in examining how individuals reflect on and recall the Soviet/Russian home country in literary presentations, addressing the history of mobility, emigration, family, gender, ethnic or religious background in face of their collective memory in their new place of residence. The meeting points for the proposals are the concepts of travelling/mobility/exile and (post-, trans-/cross-cultural) memory. The focus is on women’s fictional texts and memories from the 1980s until today that allow the presentations to address and to acknowledge [e]migrating women writers as mediators of ideas and memories in trans-/cross- cultural contexts. The aim of the conference is to focus on gender in the process of the transformation of cultures through ideas that travel, and to pay special attention to women’s contribution to the cultural transfer and mobility of ideas and memories which have not been sufficiently studied and documented.

The conference has its background in the research project “Texts on the Move” , and it is organised by Texts on the Move: Reception of Women’s Writing in Finland and Russia 1840–2020 (Emil Aaltonen Foundation),  University of Turku, and Tampere University. The organizers plan to publish an edited collection of papers presented at the conference.