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We are currently experiencing a planetary crisis that will lead, if worst comes to worst, to the end of the entire world as we know it. Several feminist scholars have suggested that if the Earth is to stay livable for humans and nonhumans alike, the ways in which many human beings – particularly in the wealthy parts of the world, infested with Eurocentrism, (neo)colonialism, neoliberalism, and capitalism – inhabit this planet requires radical, ethical, and political transformation. In this article, we propose that feminist theory, particularly feminist posthumanities, and Black feminist and decolonial thought, together with creative practices such as writing, have much to contribute to transformative planetary activism that imagines different and other kinds of worlds and futures based on an ethical consideration of nonhuman others and collective caring for the planet.

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The aim of this essay is to address the challenges and problems in communicating with horses and interpreting their communication in everyday handling and training situations. We seek ways to learn more about equine communication and agency in the prevention of cruelty against animals and in enhancing animal welfare. We ask how it would be possible to learn to read the subtle signs of equine communication and agency in a sensible, sensitive, and ethical way to increase the health and wellbeing of horses that humans interact with. We have placed this theoretical examination in a multidisciplinary framework that consists of humananimal studies, feminist posthumanities, cultural and literary studies, and equine social science, as well as applied insights from, for example, discussions on power, ethics, and politics. Our emphasis is on the need for situated knowledges, among scientific and tacit knowledges, in order to ‘become with’ a horse in a relationship based on mutual communication and trust. These different types of knowledges are central to an ‘animal politics’ that is organised politically on behalf of animals and motivated by an ethics of care and responsibility, echoing recent requests for a relational ethics in interactions with animals in multispecies societies and more-than-human worlds.

Tämä kaksikielinen ”Borderlands of Representation / Representaatioiden rajaseuduilla” -teemanumero käsittelee tunnistamisen ja tunnustamisen rajoja sekä representaatioiden ja tulkinnan politiikkaa sukupuolen, seksuaalisuuden ja ueer-tutkimuksen konteksteissa. Millaiset erot ovat näkyviä, kerrottavia tai luettavissa ja siten avoimia tulkinnoille tai väärintulkinnoille (olivatpa ne tarkoituksellisia tai tahattomia)? Miksi niistä tulee merkityksenantoprosessien ja representaatioiden politiikkaa koskevien kiistojen paikkoja ja jopa poliittisten valtataistelujen areenoita? Miten representaatioiden näkyvyys ja merkitys muuttuvat suhteessa aikaan ja paikkaan, tulkitsijan tarpeisiin ja toiveisiin sekä vallitseviin tietojärjestelmiin? Voimmeko ja pitäisikö meidän luottaa käsityksiimme sukupuolesta ja seksuaalisuudesta ja pystymmekö pakenemaan kulttuurisia konventioita, jotka muokkaavat ymmärrystämme niistä? This bilingual thematic issue entitled “Borderlands of Representation” discusses the limits of recognition and the politics of representation and interpretation in the context of gender, sexuality, and queer studies. What kinds of differences are visible, tellable, or readable, thus open to interpretation or misinterpretation, whether intended or unintended? Why do they become sites of meaning-making processes and contestations over the politics of representation, and even arenas of political power struggles? How do the visibility and significance of representations change in relation to time and place, the needs and desires of the interpreter, and the prevailing knowledge systems? Can and should we trust our perception and are we capable of escaping the cultural conventions that shape our understandings of gender and sexuality? nonPeerReviewed

Tensions between the well-being of present humans, future humans, and nonhuman nature manifest in social protests and political and academic debates over the future of Earth. The increasing consumption of natural resources no longer increases, let alone equalises, human well-being, but has led to the current ecological crisis. While the crisis has been acknowledged, it is often approached in human-centred terms, with framings that limit the moral worth of nonhuman nature to its contribution to human well-being. We derive and propose the concept of planetary well-being to recognise the moral considerability of both human and nonhuman well-being, and to promote transdisciplinary, cross-cultural discourse for addressing ecological and social crises and for promoting societal and cultural transformation. Conceptually, we shift focus in well-being from individuals to Earth system and ecosystem processes that underlie all well-being. Planetary well-being is a state where the integrity of Earth system and ecosystem processes remains unimpaired to a degree that species and populations can persist to the future and organisms have the opportunity to achieve well-being. After grounding and introducing planetary well-being, we shortly discuss how it can be measured and reflect upon its potential as a bridging concept between different worldviews.

”Ehdotus ihmistä suhteellistavaksi sanastoksi” käsittelee ja esittelee teoriasuuntausta, joka tunnetaan ”posthumanistisena”, keskittyen erityisesti sen käsitteisiin ja termeihin. Posthumanistinen ajattelu pyrkii käsitteelliseen uudistamiseen, jotta tunnistaisimme paremmin ne suhteellisuudet, joiden varassa ja lomassa ihmisten elämä ja merkitykset muotoutuvat – ja ne historiat, joissa ihminen on muotoutunut erilliseksi. Ehdotamme sanastoa, joka suhteellistaa juuri tätä käsitteellistä, kartesiolaisen humanismin ihmistä. Yhtäältä seuraamme käsitteellisen ajattelun muotoutumista erilaisten kontekstien paineissa, toisaalta pysähdymme tarkastelemaan tiettyjä, työskentelyssämme tärkeitä käsitteitä. Olemme pysähtyneet silloin, kun käsitettä kääntäessä tai käyttäessä tapahtuu jotain kiinnostavaa: englanninkielinen termi ei käänny yksiselitteisesti suomenkieliseksi termiksi; jotain käsitteessä muuttuu; tai ehkä muuttuukin se kokemuskenttä, jonka käsite avaa. Näin kiinnitämme huomion tilanteisiin, joissa ihmisen erityisasemaa haastava ajattelu kehkeytyy.

The first chapter presents the book’s point of departure as well as its central concepts and structure. It outlines the current understandings of and theoretical approaches to the intersections of violence, gender and affect. The starting point is that gendered violence and violating practices are embedded in social structures of power and in inequalities, institutions, regimes and the symbolic order. They are manifested in human interaction as well as in cultural discourses and representations. The chapter also gives an overview of the abundant research and various perspectives involved in analysing the intersections of violence, gender and affect as well as the continuities and interconnections between different forms of violence, violations and violating practices. As such, it justifies the necessity of studying ideological, institutional and affective practices of violence among individuals, communities and societies and the consequences of different forms of violence and violating practices for those who have been hurt. peerReviewed

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Gendered and sexualized abuse and other forms of violence are visibly present in the culture of the third millennium. Especially bodies that are gendered as female are – both dead and alive – objects of multiple forms of abuse and violence in the texts and imageries of contemporary culture. Men, on the other hand, are often represented as abusive towards women and as the violent gender or, as targets of other men’s violence. Structural violence has also an impact on many areas of everyday life, and it is materialized in, for example discrimination and inequality.Gender and Violence: The Ethics and Politics of Reading scrutinizes gendered violence as a complex phenomenon of contemporary culture. The authors study the ways in which ways representations of violence can be read, viewed and received. They also discuss what kind of politics the violent representations implement and actualize, and how they affect their audience.Gender and Violence takes a critical stance on the intersections of gender, power, and violence in literature, film, television and the internet. The analysis focuses on, for example, sci-fi, Nordic Noir and North American comedy series, poems, young adult literature (YA) and nationalist blog texts. The book presents both Finnish and international academic discussions, in which researchers in the fields of gender studies, arts and literature, and cultural studies challenge contemporary English abstract 279 understanding of gender, sexuality, power, and violence. Moreover, Gender and Violence provides tools for critical discussions on violence and in-depth scrutiny about its cost on all of us. Gender and Violence is an anthology of academic research articles. It works well as an academic textbook, but it also provides timely and new knowledge for everyone interested in questions of gender and violence – phenomena that touch upon all of us.

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This article discusses intersections of genres and genders and their theorization in the contemporary literary scene and suggests a queer reading of a short-listed contemporary Finnish novel, written by the well-known author and theatre figure Pirkko Saisio. The aim of the article is to present feminist genre theories, influenced by Bakhtinian conception of genres, Foucauldian and Butlerian theorizations of genders and sexualities, and the critical discussions in queer studies. The article reads Saisio's novel as a demonstration through an adaptation of a theoretical concept, namely genre hybridity, combined with another concept adaptation, gender hybridity. The article concludes by suggesting that although the novel can be seen as a representative of an entirely new literary genre, that is queer literature, it works in its historical context better as a hybrid genre that refuses monolithic genre locations, and this way comes closer to the theoretical concept of the constantly hybrid, transgressing and bo...

Jyväskylän yliopiston kirjallisuusoppiaineen esittely

Everything is Worth Selling: Commercial Sex, Violence and Heterosexuality in Sofi Oksanen’s and Essi Henriksson’s Novels Maria Jotuni, a celebrated Finnish realist female author of the 19th century, depicted women who were forced to sell both their bodies and their souls in business-like, heterosexual marriage arrangements. The same can be said of the women depicted by two contemporary Finnish female authors, Sofi Oksanen (Baby Jane 2005) and Essi Henriksson (Ilmestys 2007, ‘Revelation’), although their female characters do not get married. Instead, they objectify their bodies and feelings in slightly different business arrangements, that is, in sex work. The novels do not represent only commercial sex and sex work, but they also depict heterosexual relationships. These relationships become, like in Jotuni’s novels, gendered and unequal power relations in which money plays a significant role. Economical power signifies for gendered and heterosexual power, and by oppressing and objectifying women’s bodies and feelings this economical, gendered and heterosexual power system is connected also to violence. This article discusses the representations of commercial sex, sex work, and gendered, sexual violence in the novels of Sofi Oksanen and Essi Henriksson, and their interrelations with heterosexuality and heteronormativity. In addition, this article examines the meanings of gender and sexuality in the late capitalistic consumption culture. The image that the novels create of gendered and heterosexual power relations encourages the reader to reconsider gendered power relations in general and the idea of heteronormative social order – which still, a hundred years after the publication of Jotuni’s works, supports the hierarchies and inequality between genders. This is how the novels of Oksanen and Henriksson participate in the continuum of Finnish female authors who criticize the cultural norms of gender and sexuality.

Viola Parente-Čapková Tahto transsendenssiin? Hanna Ruutu: Patterns of Transcendence Päivi Koivisto Omaelämäkerran monenkirjavat juuret Päivi Kosonen: Isokrateesta Augustinukseen Risto Turunen Perinteisesti uusiksi Yrjö Varpio: Väinö Linnan elämä Sanna Karkulehto Säntillisesti ja queeristi rakkauksista, jotka eivät voi lausua nimeään Pia Livia Hekanaho: Yhden äänen muotokuvia

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Taajuuksilla värähdellen (Vibrating Dimensions. Affections and Positions of Gender in Literature and Film) consists of an introduction and twelve articles focusing on critical literary and film studies on representations of gender, sexuality, “race”, ethnicity, class, body, and age. In addition to these themes and topics the articles discuss the concepts of place, space and position, and feelings, affectivity and affections in literature and film, and in studying these issues. The contributors are literary and film scholars from the universities of Helsinki, Oulu, and Turku. The articles have been reviewed by experts in the field, and edited and improved based on their recommendations.

Nukkeanimaatio Uralin perhonen nostatti kevättalvella 2008 Suomessa kiihkeän mediamyrskyn. Katariina Lillqvistin ohjaama animaatio kertoo ”suurimmaksi suomalaiseksi” valitusta Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheimista selvästi kansallisista suurmieskertomuksista poikkeavan tarinan. Se esittelee aktiivisesti vuoden 1918 sisällissodan punaisten teloituksiin osallistuvan marsalkka Mannerheimin. Elokuvassa annetaan myös ymmärtää, että Mannerheimilla olisi ollut homoseksuaalinen suhde ”Uralin perhoseksi” nimetyn kirgisialaisen palvelijansa kanssa. Lisäksi Uralin perhosessa sivutaan transvestisuutta Mannerheimin pukeutuessa siinä purppuranpunaiseen korsettiin. Artikkelissa tarkastellaan, miten Uralin perhosen mediavastaanotossa kirjoitettiin ja puhuttiin seksuaalisuudesta ja miten seksuaalisuuden merkityksistä neuvoteltiin Suomen mediassa Uralin perhosen vastaanoton sekä siihen sidoksissa olevan Mannerheimin henkilökuvan kautta. Artikkelin aineisto koostuu yhteensä neljästäkymmenestä suomalaisten sanoma- ja iltapäivälehtien internetissä julkaisemasta uutisesta, artikkelista ja arvostelusta, muista internetissä julkaistuista teksteistä sekä Yleisradion TV 1:ssä esitetystä A-talk-keskusteluohjelmasta. Uralin perhosen vastaanoton tutkimuksen lisäksi artikkelissa esitellään sitä edeltäneitä ja sille rinnasteisia taiteen mediakohuja ja kulttuurisotia. Uralin perhosta ja sen vastaanottoa tarkastellaan osana laajempaa kulttuurisotien jatkumoa, jossa on käyty jatkuvaa neuvottelua taiteen sananvapaudesta sekä taiteen ja kulttuurin sensuroimisesta. Uralin perhosta paheksuttiin mediassa voimakkain ja tuomitsevin äänenpainoin. Etenkin siinä kuvatusta normienvastaisesta seksuaalisuudesta kirjoitettiin provokatiivisesti ja provosoituneesti. Marskin päivät mediamyrskyn silmässä osoittavat, että suomalainen sotasankaruus, kansallishistoria ja kansallisuus näyttäytyvät monissa yhteyksissä edelleen muuttumattomina, järkkymättömästi pyhinä ja jalustalle asetettuina ihannekuvina. Taiteen tai sen esittelemien normienvastaisten seksuaalisuuksien ei sovi niitä horjuttaa. Toisaalta kulttuurisotien kontekstissa Marskia koskevaa mediamyrskyä voidaan lukea myös seksuaalisuuden kulttuurisia merkityksiä ja rajoja koettelevana ilmiönä.

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