Research projects related to SELMA

Intersectional Reading, Social Justice, and Literary Activism (INTERACT) – Funded by KONE Foundation (2022-2025)

Reading has become a major focus of contemporary discussions on social justice. Recently, reading-related activism has developed under many forms, however, there is no academic research on activist reading. In this project, based at the University of Turku and funded by Kone Foundation, our aim is to create solid research-based methods for activist reading. We understand activism as a sensitive move towards gradual, small changes. We emphasize the meaning of microactivism, long-term analysis and concentration on everyday structural inequalities; we envision intersectional reading as a mode of intimate activism in order to increase equality.

Indeed, as several scholars have pinpointed, intersectionality is both a theory and a mode of activism committed to social justice. Originating from the long tradition of Black feminist social movements and literature, intersectionality today is a research

tool that conceptualizes the multiple, relational and complex power dynamics connected to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, able-bodiedness, age, social status, species, or any such factor that is relevant to our socio-cultural experiences. Intersectionality analyzes how those factors locate people differently in our social and cultural reality, especially in relation to societal structures of inequality.

Our project examines the ways literary studies might enable Intersectionality’s potential in understanding and unraveling those situated differences. Thus, the project tackles the challenge of inequality by imagining forms of literary activism. Our focus is to create intersectional reading practices that enable its potential in increasing social justice and educational democracy.

The project is led by Kaisa Ilmonen and includes researchers Kaiju Harinen and Marta-Laura Cenedese.

Nordic voices: The use of oral history and personal memories in public history settings (2022-2024)

NORDIC VOICES seeks to increase the use of oral histories, life narratives and personal memories in Nordic cultural institutions by collaborating with leading experts from both academia and various cultural institutions. Compared to many other countries, the use of personal sources in Nordic cultural institutions and online archives is limited, because all the Nordic countries have strict personal data acts.

The first NORDIC VOICES workshop “Oral history and personal testimonies in museums” will be held in autumn 2022 in Copenhagen, Roskilde and Malmö. The second workshop “Oral histories, life stories and analysing significance in museums” will be held in autumn 2023 in Turku and Paimio. Additionally two online workshops will be held, the first “Significant literature on personal testimonies as museum communication” in spring 2022 and the second “Sustainable and transformative futures of memory practices and institutions” in spring 2023.

Instrumental Narratives (Academy of Finland, 2018-2022)

in a Consortium with Tampere and Helsinki

The new Academy of Finland project “Instrumental Narratives: The Limits of Storytelling and New Story-Critical Narrative Theory” develops ideas and analytical instruments that will equip researchers, professional groups and non-academic audiences to navigate today’s social and textual environments that are dominated by storytelling. We put contemporary literary fiction in dialogue with the manipulative stories that spread around the internet, in order to reveal the dubious relationship that some narratives have with identity, truth, politics, and complex systems such as climate change.

In order to confront these issues, we reveal the sophisticated story-critical ideas and techniques offered by works of contemporary fiction. The project brings together the nationally leading and internationally renowned scholars of narrative at the Universities of Tampere, Turku and Helsinki. The Turku team, hosted by SELMA, focuses particularly on identity work, therapeutic uses of literature, and story-critical metanarrativity in contemporary fiction. Its Principal Investigator is Hanna Meretoja, and the research team includes Marta-Laura Cenedese, Colin Davis, Johanna Kaakinen, Päivi Kosonen, Anu Laukkanen, Maarit Leskelä-Kärki, Nena Mocnik, and Jouni Teittinen.

#NeverAgain: Teaching Transmission of Trauma and Remembrance through Experiential Learning

Funded by European Commission (Europe for Citizens – European Remembrance Strand)

In September 2018, SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory at the School of History, Culture and Arts Studies (University of Turku) will launch an interdisciplinary project “#NeverAgain: Teaching Transmission of Trauma and Remembrance through Experiential Learning,” a Europe wide initiative funded by the European Commission (Europe for Citizens – European Remembrance Strand).

Over the next 18 months, the project aims to address the concealed hatreds, prejudices and normalized oppressions that are learnt through the unhealed and transmitted traumas perpetuated in our everyday lives through seemingly harmless everyday practices. The project partners from Finland, Denmark, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Romania, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, and Italy will develop and deliver 4 clusters of local events within their communities to test experiential learning tools (ELT) in order to experience the harmful effects of transmitted collective traumas and how they impact the continuation of hatreds and vengeance today.

The project’s events will bring together around 450 students and teachers and additional 500 community members as invited audiences and will influence numerous other individuals by using event hashtags on the social media and online platform. The processes and outcomes will be presented at “#NeverAgain: Teaching Transmission of Trauma and Remembrance through Experiential Learning”, a workshop-based conference in June 2019, hosted by University of Turku, where we aim to attract between 50-100 professionals and young people from across Europe, from a variety of disciplines and fields of work, such as universities, NGOs, and public bodies like museums and memorial houses. In the dissemination phase, we will develop and launch a transnational blended education platform, offering different in-class experiential didactic methods and online webinars and didactic videogames. The Project Leader is Professor Hanna Meretoja (Director of SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory) and the Project Manager is Dr Nena Močnik (SELMA Postdoctoral Researcher).

Uuden etsijät. Esoteerisuus ja uskonnollisuuden murros suomalaisen sivistyneistön parissa 1880-luvulta 1930-luvulle

led by Maarit Leskelä-Kärki

The Experience of History and the Ethics of Storytelling in Contemporary Arts (2013-2015, funded by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation)

led by Hanna Meretoja