MEMBERS

The leader of the project is Erkki Sevänen, Professor of Literature (Sociology of Literature), University of Eastern Finland, and Adjunct Professor of Aesthetics, University of Helsinki.

Here is how Sevänen describes some of his own research in the project:

“I  have an ongoing study that is closely related to the project at hand. My study Reflecting on the Possibilities of a Meaningful Existence. A Study of Juha Seppälä’s Literary Prose Production was financed by the Academy of Finland in the academic year 2007-2008. In his novels and short stories, Juha Seppälä (born in 1956), who is nowadays a highly appreciated Finnish author, concentrates on reflecting upon the question what kind of possibilities human beings have to experience their life and the surrounding world in a meaningful manner. Seppälä does not deal with these questions in a vacuum, for he endeavours to explicate how societal and historical conditions determine our position in the world and our manner of experiencing it. There are clear-cut elements of social criticism in Seppälä’s works, for they show how society’s  shortcomings (unemployment, inequality, social marginalization) and sharp societal changes (urbanization, the neo-liberalist rise of market forces, a growing commodification of social life) restrict his character’s possibilities to experience their life in a meaningful manner. The critique of the contemporary market capitalism has become stronger and stronger in Seppälä’s recent works, even if his works also seem to imply that ultimately one cannot entirely avoid the experiences of meaninglessness: to a certain extent, experiences such as these simply belong to human existence itself.

As a writer and columnist, Seppälä represents a critical stand regarding the contemporary market-based competitive society, albeit he basically has adopted an existentialist view of human life. It is my intention to polish and to publish my Finnish monograph on him in 2011-2012. Thus, I have integrated the preparation of this monograph into the project at hand.”

Sevänen’s previous publications include:

• Towards a New Kind of System of Art. The Shift from the Modern to the Contemporary Sphere of Art from the Standpoint of System-Theoretical and Systemic Sociology. Saarbrücken (Germany) 2008. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller.
• The Modern and Contemporary Sphere of Art and its Place in Societal-Cultural Reality in the Light of System-Theoretical and Systemic Sociology. A Study of a Sociological Research Tradition and its Art-Theoretical Contribution. Joensuu 2008. University of Joensuu, Publications in Social Sciences nr. 87.
• Taide instituutiona ja järjestelmänä. Modernin taide-elämän historiallis-sosiologiset mallit [Art as an Institution and System. The Historical-Sociological Models of the Modern Art Life]. Helsinki 1998. SKS. 436 pages.
• A Long-Term Contrast in Systemic Sociology: Niklas Luhmann’s Anti-Humanist System Theory and Actor-Centric Critical Theory. Cybernetics and Human Knowing Volume 13:2(2006), pp. 64-93.
• Art as an Autopoietic Sub-system of Modern Society. A Critical Analysis of the Concepts of Art and Autopoietic Systems in Luhmann’s Late Production. Mike Featherstone (ed.), Theory, Culture and Society Volume 18:1(2001), s. 75-103.
• ‘The Post-National Condition’: On the Relationship Between the State, Nation and Nationalist Policy in the Present-Day Western World. In Juri Talvet (ed.), Culture and Nation at the Turn of the Millenium. Interlitteraria 5(2000), s. 15-36. Tartu. Tartu ülikooli kirjastus.
• Jari Kupiainen, Erkki Sevänen and John Stotesbury (eds.), Cultural Identity in Transition. Contemporary Conditions, Practices and Politics of a Sociocultural Phenomenon. New Delhi 2004. Atlantic Publishers.

e-mail: erkki.sevanen@uef.fi

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Simo Häyrynen is a PhD of social sciences and a specialist in cultural sociology and cultural policy/politics. His sub-project deals with the reactions of a national cultural policy to the changes in its societal environment especially within the past two decades when the welfare policy basis of Finnish state cultural policy has been under constant pressures. He analyses how the reactions of cultural policy indicate the degrees of autonomy and social resilience of a policy community. He argues that the system, constructed originally for protecting free artistic expression and equal distribution of cultural possibilities from the market forces, has in fact been in the front line of neoliberal revolution in Finland. In practise, however, the fight has been a technocratic one between different notions of what are the governmental responsibilities. Furthermore, Simo Häyrynen focuses on the local and regional variations of Finnish state cultural policy.

Most relevant previous publications:

• Partisans of the Nation-State. Comparing Minority Identities in New Zealand and Finland. National Identities. Vol. 8 (2)/2006. pp. 149-168.
• Spatial Nature of Cultural Recognition. Constructing Finnish North Karelia in the Centre/periphery -dimension of Cultural Policy. International Journal of Cultural Policy. Vol. 9 (1)/2003. pp. 65-81.
• Culture as a Field of Policy: a popular orientation in the cultural policies of New Zealand and Finland. Nordisk Kulturpolitisk Tidskrift 1/2002. pp. 212-236.
• Culture Remains. Outokumpu after the Mining. – Kulttuuri jää. Outokumpu kaivosteollisuuden jälkeen. Finnish Literary Society, Helsinki 2010. 276p. Ref. (in Finnish)
• Textbook: Cultural Policy of Finnish Society – Suomalaisen yhteiskunnan kulttuuripolitiikka. Sophi: Jyväskylä 2006. 242 p. Ref. (in Finnish)
• Between the Nation and Province. Constructing the Regional Community of North Karelia in the Centre/periphery relation of Cultural Policy. University of Joensuu. Publications in Social Sciences. n. 57. Joensuu 2002. 314 p. (Ph.D-study; in Finnish; English summary).
• The Concept of Culture in Trans-disciplinary research projects – Kulttuurin käsite poikkitieteellisissä tutkimushankkeissa. In Vaeltavat metodit. Ed. by J. Pöysä, H. Järviluoma-Mäkelä, S. Vakimo. Suomen Kansantietouden tutkijain seura: Joensuu, 2010 p. 43-62 Ref. (in Finnish)
• Spinning or Distinction. Cultural policy as frames for cultural production – Kudontaa vai erottelua? Kulttuuripolitiikka kulttuurituotannon kehyksenä. In Kulttuurituotanto. Kehykset, käytäntö ja prosessit. Ed. by M. Grahn & M. Häyrynen. Finnish Literature Society. Tietolipas 230: Helsinki, 2009. 23-43 (21p.) Ref.   (in Finnish)
•  Cultural Evaluation and the Channels of Impacts – Kulttuurin arviointi ja vaikutusten väylät. Ed. by S. Häyrynen. The Foundation for Cultural Policy Research – Cupore publications 12/2005. Helsinki: Helsingin Yliopistopaino. 250 p. Editor’s contributions: Introduction and Conclusion. Ref. (in Finnish)

E-mail: simo.hayrynen@uef.fi

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Visual artist, Master of Social Sciences, Master of Arts Kalle Lampela writes his doctoral dissertation in the project, asking what kind of attitudes visual artists take toward utilizing art in society. Lampela is a Doctoral Student of Art in University of Lapland, Faculty of Art and Design. His doctoral dissertation includes art production.

Lampela is editor-in-chief of Finnish art magazine ½-lehti.

E-mail: kalle.lampela@pp.inet.fi

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Ph. Lic Anne Logrén works as a junior researcher in the project. Her main research interests are on the discourses of the (visual) artist in the context of North Karelian province. These include both contemporary Finnish media representations and artistic self-identifications. At the moment she is finalizing her doctoral dissertation.

Her main publications are:

• An article Maisemia ja muistoja – Näkymiä Ilomantsin kuvataide-elämään ja julkiseen taiteeseen (2012) (Landscapes and Memories – Prospects to Artistic Life and Public Art in Ilomantsi). In Syrjäseudun idea – Kulttuurianalyysejä Ilomantsista. Eds. Seppo Knuuttila & Helmi Järviluoma &  Anne Logrén & Risto Turunen. SKS.
• The Dimensions of the “Local” in Relation to Visual Artists’ Identity in the Context of the Province of the North Karelia in Finland (2011). In The Cultural Challenges and Possibilities of Former Single-industry Communities: Locality, Memory, Reconstruction. Eds. Simo Häyrynen, Risto Turunen & Jopi Nyman. Cambridge Scholar Publishing Ltd. pp. 142 – 159.
• Licentiate dissertation Kuvataiteilijuus – ihanteita ja odotuksia. Kuvataiteilijoiden konstruoituminen ja suhde moderneihin taidekäsityksiin Taide-lehdessä ja Helsingin Sanomien kulttuurisivuilla vuosina 2000–2005. Universtiy of Joensuu 2007, painamaton. (It deals with visual artists in relation to modern conceptions of art in the professional art magazine (Taide) and in the daily news paper (Helsingin Sanomat) in the beginning of the 20th century.)

E-mail: anne.logren@uef.fi

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Ph.D. Jussi Ojajärvi works as a post-doc researcher in the project, and is a visiting scholar in The Program in Literature at Duke University (Durham, US) during 2011. His focus is on the the critical representation of capitalism in contemporary Finnish Literature. Ojajärvi’s main publications include:

• the doctoral dissertation Supermarketin valossa (SKS 2006) which studies the thematicisation of capitalism and subjectivity in Kiltin yön lahjat (1998) by Mari Mörö and in some other texts;
• an anthology, co-edited with Liisa Steinby, on the relations of culture, the self and the market in the neoliberal era (Minä ja markkinavoimat, Avain 2008).

E-mail: jussi.ojajarvi@uef.fi