Serafim Seppälä (serafim.seppala@uef.fi)
Research interests: Encounter of Islam and Christianity (600-800), Syriac mystical theology, Early Byzantine ascetic literature, Byzantine & Syriac liturgical commentaries, Mariology, Aesthetics & Angelology in early Byzantium, Non-dogmatic patristic topics from second to fourth century, idea of Jerusalem, Jewish angelology, Post-holocaust Jewish theology, Cultural heritage of the Armenian genocide, Rabbi Kook
Sinikka Selin (sinikka.selin@uef.fi)
My study on Young Urban Karelianity is part of a project called Urban Karelianity, which is led by Professor Maria Lähteenmäki. The accelerating societal change has not diminished the fundamental human need of belonging. Sense of belonging can be based on a specific area or culture, as in the case of Karelia. My study focuses on young people who identify themselves as Karelian and their ideas and conceptions of being Karelian. What does it mean to these 15 to 35 years-olds living in urban or semi-urban communities to be Karelian? How is it manifested in their actions both in associations and in social media?
The source material is gathered through three main ways. One of them is a memory collection organized together with the Finnish Literature Society (SKS). The memory collection deals with Karelian tradition, remembrance and everyday life. Secondly, members of Karelian associations are asked to take part in a questionnaire and interviews. Thirdly, contents posted in social media (Facebook, Instagram) are utilized. The research frame bases on the idea that the young generation has a significant role in how the heritage is transmitted and reformed. The hypothesis is that these two need to be in balance so that Karelian heritage can remain as an appealing basis of belonging also in the future.
The 1st International Conference on German and Russian Transcultural Film and Literature
Traumatized Borders
“Traumatized Borders: Reviving Subversive Narratives of B/Order, and Other” (TB) is a multidisciplinary research project which investigates oral and written trauma narratives related to various topographic and symbolic borders in Russian, Finnish, Estonian, Ukrainian, and North-American contexts. In the project, traumas are understood as universal, but yet culturally bound narratives and linguistic constructions. Borders, on the other hand, are understood as political and cultural constructions that create traumas and determines the meaning and significance of border related trauma narratives. Geopolitically, TB focuses on the contemporary EU-Russian border, former Soviet internal borders, and the historical Soviet Union border with the West, whose influence reaches even the North-American context. The study covers time period between the 1920s to the present day including some of the most significant historical events that have defined Russia’s and its neighbors’ topographic and symbolic borders.
In the project, methods provided by cultural studies, folklore research, cultural anthropology, literature research and linguistics are applied.
The project is funded by the Academy of Finland.
Tuulikki Kurki (tuulikki.kurki@uef.fi)
I work as a Professor in cultural studies (specialising in research on cultural change) at the School of Humanities, University of Eastern Finland. My recent research has focused on borders and borderlands from the point of view of culture, literature, and objects, and my latest monograph addresses Finnish language literature in Russian Karelia, ”Rajan kirjailijat: Venäjän Karjalan suomenkieliset kirjailijat tilan ja identiteetin kirjoittajina” (Trans. Writers of the Border: Finnish Speaking Writers of Space and Identity in Russian Karelia, SKS, 2018). My recent research projects include “Traumatized Borders: Reviving Subversive Narratives of B/Order, and Other” (Academy of Finland, 2016-20), and “A Lost Mitten and Other Stories: Experiences of Borders, Mobilities, and New Neighbor Relations” (Kone Foundation, 2018-2022). Visit the virtual exhibition of the project “A Lost Mitten and Other Stories” here: https://www.360panorama.fi/360KadonnutKinnas/.
Ulla Härkönen (ulla.harkonen@uef.fi)
Supervise doctoral students
memberships at the scientific boards of international journals (4 permanently, and also others in every year)
reviews of national and international scientific articles when asked
contacts to national and international colleagues and universities, and connections to the scientific literature
write scientific articles and books
Viliina Silvonen (viliina.silvonen@uef.fi)
Viliina Silvonen is an ethnomusicologically oriented folklorist specializing in Karelian lament tradition and its sprouts in Finland. Her research includes themes like performance and poetics, emotions and affective power of lamenting, as well as historical and cultural meanings. She is interested in tradition in changing sociocultural contexts, and the postcolonial discourse and minority perspectives linked to the lament tradition in contemporary Finland. Affiliated as a postdoctoral researcher at the UEF Karelian Institute, she works at the multidisciplinary research community of Finnish Literature Society (SKS).
In her article-based doctoral dissertation, she combined views from linguistic anthropological and folklore studies’ performance and practice theories with interdisciplinary affect and emotion theories and applied text, music and sound/voice analyses and sensory ethnography to reach the emotions and the affective power of laments through the archival audio material. In her postdoctoral research, she concentrates on the continuum of varying lament tradition from Karelian ritual practice to the practices and performances in contemporary Finnish society. During last couple of years, she has collaborated with a lamenter-musician Emmi Kuittinen.
Silvonen defended her doctoral dissertation in Folklore Studies at the University of Helsinki in January 2022. She graduated with a Master of Arts degree in Folklore Studies from the University of Turku in 2014. Silvonen is a member of the editorial board for the Elore Journal. She has founded a popular science blog Päivystävä folkloristi (‘a folklorist on-call’) with her colleagues.