Programme (subject to change)
Updated 27 September 2019
Time: On Tuesdays at 16:15-17:45
Exception: On Tuesday, 22 October, at 14.15-15.45
Place: Tampere University, Pinni B, Kanslerinrinne 1, 1st fl.
NB! Varying lecture halls marked in the programme
17.9. Mediatization and the Transformation of the Self, Pinni B 1096
Professor Rainer Winter, Alpen Adria-Universität Klagenfurt in Austria
According to the tradition of pragmatism and symbolic interactionism, the social self constitutes by social interaction. After explaining this connection, the here presented contribution analyses the consequences of audio-visual mediatisation in the last decades of the 20th century and the implications of digital mediatisation in the 21st century for the self which is put into question by these developments. It is made obvious that there happen media-induced transformations of the self. Nevertheless, it is still of great significance for initiating creative processes and the possibility of emancipation.
Keywords: Social self, social interaction, audio-visual and digital mediatisation, the post-modern age, the oversaturated self, the culture of simulation, the virtual self, virtual transparency
1.10. Entanglement of Humanitarianism with Colonialism and Orientalism, Pinni B 1096 (rescheduled from 29.10.)
Professor Meyda Yeğenoğlu, IASR, Tampere University
This lecture examines numerous texts written during the period of Armenian genocide and its aftermath by officials, politicians, ambassadors, relief workers, missionaries and voluntary workers to unpack how the newly emerging quasi-scientific, evidence-based and technocratic discourse of humanitarianism function as one of the hegemonic narratives in the epistemic field of Armenian genocide. They impose a certain way of speaking about the victim, sufferer, orphan and race, religion, civilization, Christianity and Islam. The enhanced political, diplomatic, missionary and philanthropic interests were instrumental in transforming the Armenian issue into a knowable entity/object, predominantly treated as an issue of minorities living outside the borders of Europe. Representation of Armenia as the origin and cradle of civilization functioned as a prism through which issues that pertain to the Ottoman Empire, Islam and the problems Christian minorities experience under Muslim rule were raised. The humanitarian discourse and practices of the period have created new forms of knowledge that were radically different from the religiously motivated vernacular of the missionaries. It was no longer sentimental, but technocratic, documentary via photographs and eye-witness accounts. This quasi-scientific, ethnographic and institutionalized narratives established a particular form of representation and common tropes that cut across all these texts in addressing the issue of minority rights, civilization, progress, customs and ways of life of different racial, religious and cultural groups. The lecture aims to unpack the ideologies and categories that operate in the narratives of humanitarianism as expressed in the apparitions of universal humanitarian ideals, and show how these texts are tinted and conditioned by European imperial concerns and Orientalist imaginaries.
15.10. What does ‘decolonization’ mean to you? A farewell (bomb) letter, Pinni B 1096
Dr Leonardo da Costa Custódio, IASR, Tampere University
Decolonization seems to have become a buzzword in multiple disciplines in Finland and abroad. However, the debate about what it means in relation to individual, collective, institutional and structural changes in academia remains under-discussed. Inspired by Tuck and Yang’s article “Decolonization is not a metaphor” (2012), Custódio – descendent of enslaved people in a former Portuguese colony – reflects on his own relationship with coloniality and what “to decolonize” means in his own scholarly trajectory. The goal of the talk is to provoke the audience to reflect about their own epistemological choices and power positions in the unequal and hierarchical university system.”
22.10. Women Leaders in Finnish Universities: Navigating Neoliberalism, Narrating Neuroliberalism, and Nurturing New Imaginaries, Pinni B 1096, NB! at 14:15-15:45
Professor Louise Morley, University of Sussex in the UK
Louise Morley and Rebecca Lund
While some women are flourishing as leaders in the global academy, others are subjecting leadership to critical scrutiny and disqualifying it as an unattractive career option involving compliance with the political economy of neoliberalism that often conflicts with feminist values and epistemologies. Leadership, for many feminists, implies epistemic splitting, frictions, and limited subject positions. In a context where welfare has slipped into wellbeing, neuroliberalism, or the governing through affect can be a dominant modus operandi. Feminist change interventions can be restricted to the affective, rather than the structural – mentoring, soothing and mediating the toxic effects of competitive individualism and performance measurement. We ask what ways of knowing can allow us to think differently about gender and leadership, and what circulation of affects, shapes women´s leadership priorities, practices and identities? What possibilities are emerging from the assemblages and relational potential of policy interventions, global speaking back to patriarchal power, the revisioning of gender, and the inclusion of women in higher education leadership. This paper is based on 10 interviews with women university leaders in five universities in Finland- a Nordic country with a sophisticated policy architecture for gender equality. Theoretically, the study intersects feminist affect notions, gender performativity, neoliberalism and neuroliberalism. Areas of affective intensity that participants reported included: gendered authority, financialised performance cultures, conflict and unpopular decision-making, precarity, and ageism. We conclude that while there is substantial evidence of gender inequalities in higher education, and problematic restrictive gender binary categories, more attention should be paid to imagining and leading post-gender universities. The politics of representation i.e. counting more women into neoliberal universities, are not necessarily a counternormative force and should be replaced with a politics of vision, and indeed, of hope.
29.10. Three Remarks on Populism: Theology, Class, Figure, Pinni B 1100
Professor Mahmut Mutman, IASR, Tampere University
12.11. What Enables Refugee Background Students’ Educational Success? ‘Zooming in’ on the Practice Architectures of Multicultural Learning Environments, Pinni B 1100
Dr Mervi Kaukko, IASR, Tampere University
(forthcoming)
26.11. A Post-socialist Perspective on Emerging Audit Culture: Changing Practices and Subjectivities of School Teachers in a Russian Region, Pinni B 1100
Associate Professor Nelli Piattoeva, NSR, Tampere University
(forthcoming)
10.12. “Poor and primitive, but honest and truthful” – Overseas Famine Aid to Finland, 1856-68, Pinni B 1096
Dr Andrew Newby, IASR, Tampere University
(forthcoming)
The Speakers Series is a series of Studia Generalia Lectures in the Study of Society organized weekly by Tampere University Institute for Advanced Social Research (IASR) in cooperation with the New Social Research Programme (NSR). The lectures are given by the Research Fellows as well as the distinguished guests of the IASR and the NSR. For the programme, please check the IASR website https://research.tuni.fi/iasr/event/iasr-nsr-speakers-series-fall-2019/. Most doctoral students can also get 2 ECTS for attending a minimum of six IASR Lectures, altogether 6 ECTS at the maximum. These 2 ECTS for attending 6 lectures can be earned during two successive terms.