Kollegium Talks on Helsingin yliopiston tutkijakollegiumin keskustelusarja Tiedekulman Stagella. Jokaisessa Kollegium Talks -sarjan keskustelussa tutkijakollegiumin huippututkijat tai heidän vieraansa keskustelevat itse valitsemastaan aiheesta, joka avaa tuoreita näkökulmia ajankohtaiseen ihmistieteelliseen tutkimukseen ja nykymaailmaan. Syksyn 2021 tilaisuudet ovat englanninkielisiä.

Keskusteluja voi syksyllä 2021 seurata paikan päällä Tiedekulman Stagella 29.11., 9.12. ja 13.12. klo 17 (Yliopistonkatu 4) tai vaihtoehtoisesti verkossa Tiedekulman sivuilla 

Ohjelma:

KOLLEGIUM TALKS: Demo­cratic Polit­ics in Post-Com­mun­ist Europe

29 Novem­ber 2021 at 5 pm, Think Corner Stage

Thirty years ago, many citizens in Central, East and Southeast Europe trusted that their countries were at the beginning of a transition that would deliver greater freedom, prosperity and security.  Intellectuals, reformers and activists advanced and modeled ideals of debate, deliberation, and shared purpose that would broaden people’s horizons of the possible. 

Today, the record of accomplishments is mixed, and disillusion with democracy is widespread. Polarization, conspiratorial thinking and the politics of grievance have eroded confidence, closing communities off from one another. 

In this discussion, two scholars who both began their research in the 1990s in Eastern Europe explore what happened to expectations about “transition;” trace the rise of populist mobilization; and discuss what broader civic lessons can be learned from the hopes, dreams and practices of the region’s democratic pioneers and their future trajectories. 

Speak­ers:

Keith Brown is Core Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (2021–2022) and professor of politics and global studies at Arizona State University, where he also serves as director of the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies.

Emilia Palonen  is Senior Researcher in Political Science and Programme Director at the Helsinki Institute for Social Science and Humanities, and she leads the Helsinki Hub on Emotions, Populism and Polarisation that includes projects also covering Central Eastern Europe.

KOLLEGIUM TALKS: What’s a language er­ror?  

9 Decem­ber 2021 at 5 pm, Think Corner Stage

Why are we so afraid of making mistakes? Students in language classes, speakers of non-standard varieties, professionals working abroad – we all share the anxiety of dropping the ball. But where does this anxiety come from? Why do we perceive certain linguistic features as errors in the first place? Is there any inherent faultiness in such features, or is a language error arbitrary? And if it is arbitrary, are errors less real? Join us for a discussion of the social life of variation in language and its uneasy relationship with our normative ideas. 

Speak­ers:

Maria Khachaturyan is a core fellow at HCAS. Her current research explores the understudied West African languages Mano and Kpelle in their social context, with a particular focus on bilingualism and bilingual language socialization.

Maria Kuteeva is an Erik Allardt Fellow at HCAS and a professor of English linguistics at Stockholm University. Over the last decade, her research has engaged with scholarly debates surrounding ontologies and roles of English outside anglophone academic contexts.

Svetlana Vetchinnikova is a core fellow at HCAS working on chunking at different levels of language organization, individual variation and modelling language as a complex system.

KOLLEGIUM TALKS: How can his­tory in­form current gender polit­ics and policy?

13 Decem­ber 2021 at 5 pm, Think Corner Stage

Most people would agree that understanding the past is important for understanding the present, but how far should we take this? What role should historical research play in shaping contemporary policy and politics? Focusing particularly on the context of gender history, this discussion will elaborate on some of the ways in which historical knowledge could inform contemporary gender politics and to further gender equality today. It will also feature two case studies. First, Louise Settle will explain how historical knowledge about domestic violence and probation could be used to inform current criminal justice policies. Second, Robert Mason will share his analysis of how politicians in the United States and the United Kingdom interpreted, and responded to, the arrival of a ‘gender gap’ in voting during the 1980s and beyond.

Speak­ers:  

Robert Mason  is a core fellow at HCAS and a professor of US history at the University of Edinburgh. His current project explores the history of the voting ‘gender gap’ in the United States, considered in comparative perspective.

Louise Settle is a core fellow at HCAS who specialises in the history of gender, crime, emotions and sexuality. Her current research explores the role that marriage therapy and popular psychology has played in shaping how ‘emotional work’ is negotiated and experienced within romantic relationships.

Tervetuloa kuulolle!

Lisätietoja

Kaisa Kaakinen, kaisa.kaakinen@helsinki.fi, 02 941 22493