Shooting from the Wild Zone : A Study of the Chicana Art Photographers Laura Aguilar, Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Delilah Montoya, and Kathy Vargas

The dissertation analyzes and elaborates upon the changing map of U.S. ethno-racial formation from the vantage point of North American Studies, multi-disciplinary cultural studies, and the criticism of visual culture. The focus is on four contemporary Mexican American (Chicana) women photographers, whose art production is discussed, on the one hand, in the context of the Euro-American history of photographic genres and, on the other hand, in the context of so-called decolonizing cultural and academic discourses produced by Mexican Americans themselves. The manuscript consists of two parts. Part I outlines the theoretical and methodological domain of the study, positioning it in the interstices of American studies, European postmodern criticism, postcolonial feminist theory, and the theories of visual culture, particularly of art photography. In addition, the main issues and paradigms of Chicano Studies (Mexican American ethnic studies) are introduced. Part II consists of seven essays, each of which discusses rather independently a particular photographic work or a series of photographs, formulating and defending arguments about their meaning, position in the history of photographic genres, and their cultural and socio-political significance. The study closes with a discussion about ethno-racial identity formation and the role of Chicana photography therein - in embodying and reproducing new subjectivities, alternative categories of knowledge, and open ended historical narratives. It is argued that, symbolically, the "Wild Zone" of gendered and race-specific knowledge becomes associated with the body of the mother, a recurrent image in Chicana art works under discussion. Embedded in this image, the construction of an alternative notion of a family thus articulates the parameters of a matrifocal ethno-racial community unified by the proliferation of differences rather than by conformities typical of nationalistic ideologies. While focusing on art photography, the study as a whole simultaneously constructs, from a European vantage point, a "thick" description of Mexican American history, identities, communities, cultural practices, and self-representations about which very little is known in Finland.

Changing Lived Worlds of Contemporary Amazonian Native Young People : Manchineri Youths in the Reserve and the City, Brazil-Acre

This thesis discusses the contemporary construction of the lived worlds of indigenous Amazonian youths. Today’s native peoples are considerably affected by the processes of globalization and urbanization, which have led to new ways of relating to their cultural traditions. This work presents a case study of Manchineri youngsters aged between 14 and 24 years old living in Acre state in Brazilian Amazonia. The Arawak-speaking Manchineri number some 1,000 people; their legally demarcated reserve is situated next to the River Yaco. The research is based on ethnographic material collected in the Mamoadate reserve and in the state capital, Rio Branco. By comparing the youth in different physical and social environments (the reserve and the city), my attempt has been to search for the most typical elements maintained, altered and created in the current lived worlds of Manchineri youths. Fieldwork methods included interviews, participant observation, photographs, video recordings, and drawings. The material was analyzed within the multidisciplinary framework of the social and cultural construction of knowledge. The study applies the concepts of social field, symbolic capital, and habitus as they have been used by Pierre Bourdieu; perspective as developed recently in Amazonian ethnology; the sacred as a cultural category as understood in the study of religion; and individual and person as concepts central to anthropology and sociology. Additionally, the study can be contextualized within youth studies, Latin American studies, and urban studies. The results of the study show that the everyday lives of young Amazonian native people are formed by a complex mixture of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’, fragmentation, and transitions between different conceptual frameworks. Part II discusses the ethnographic material in depth and shows that indigenous adolescents act from a variety of social perspectives: the native youth’s own ethnic group, divided into sub-groups, especially into urban residents and those living in the reserve; ancestors, super-human agents and spirits; other indigenous groups and non-natives. Consequently, besides the traditional initiation ritual, we find various contemporary rites of passage to adulthood: state-education, learning traditional practices, shamanism, matrimony, and transitions between the reserve and urban areas. According to these results, new social roles, political organization, responsibilities, and in general the desire to be respected, require both ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ abilities. In Part III, the study shows that the current power relations constituted by new social contacts, ethnic recognition, and cooperation with different institutions have resulted in the formation of new social fields: youth cultures, the ethnic group, shamanic practices, the ethnopolitical movement, and indigenous students. The capacity of young Amazonian Indians to act in contemporary social fields produces them as full persons. The study also argues that the elements of the lived worlds can be divided into these social fields. When focusing on these fields, it became evident that these comprise the strategies adopted by young Indians to break through social and cultural barriers.

Ancient Philosophers on Mental Illness

This dissertation is about ancient philosophers notions of mental illness, from Plato onwards. Mental illness here means disorders that, in ancient medical thought, were believed to originate in the body but to manifest themselves predominantly through mental symptoms. These illnesses were treated by physical means, which were believed to address the bodily cause of the illness, conceived of as an elemental imbalance or a state of cephalic stricture , for example. Sometimes the mental symptoms were addressed directly by psychotherapeutic means. The first and most important question explored concerns how the ancient philosophers responded to the medical notion of mental illness, and how they explained such illnesses in their theories of physiology and psychology. Although the illnesses are seldom discussed extensively, the philosophers were well aware of their existence and regarded their occurrence an indication of the soul s close dependence on the body. This called for a philosophical account. The second question addressed has to do with the ancient philosophers role as experts in mental problems of a non-medical kind, such as unwanted emotions. These problems were dubbed diseases of the soul , and the philosophers thus claimed to be doctors of the soul. Although the distinction between mental illnesses and diseases of the soul was often presented as rather obvious, there was some vagueness and overlap. There is still a third question that is explored, concerning the status of both mental illnesses and diseases of the soul as unnatural conditions, the role of the human body in the philosophical aetiologies of evil, and the medico-philosophical theories of psycho-physiological temperaments. This work consists of an introduction and five main chapters, focusing on Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Galen, and the Sceptics, the Epicureans and later Platonists. The sources drawn on are the original Greek and Latin philosophical and medical texts. It appears that the philosophers accepted the medical notion of mental illness, but interpreted it in various ways. The differences in interpretation were mostly attributable to differences in their theories of the soul. Although the distinction between mental illness and diseases of the soul was important, marking the boundary between the fields of expertise of medicine and philosophy, and of the individual s moral responsibilities, the problematic aspects of establishing it are discussed rather little in ancient philosophy. There may have been various reasons for this. The medical descriptions of mental illness are often extreme, symptoms of the psychotic type excluding the possibility of the condition being of the non-medical kind. In addition, the rigid normativeness of ancient philosophical anthropologies and their rigorous notion of human happiness decreased the need to assess the acceptability of individual variation in their emotional and intellectual lives and external behaviour.

The Saintly Madman : A Study of the Scholarly Reception History of Buile Shuibhne

This study examines the scholarly reception history of an early Irish text, Buile Shuibhne (The Frenzy of Suibhne), by focusing on the various theoretical and methodological presuppositions which have determined the scholars’ understanding of the text’s religious allegorical significance in the course of the 20th century. The reception-oriented inquiry takes the intersubjective aspect of literary interpretation as the basis for accentuating the importance of communally shared presumptions and reading strategies in the explication of interpretive variety. The materials of the study have been divided into four frameworks of interpretation: historical, pre-Christian, Christian and anthropological. This heuristic division does not denote mutually exclusive paradigms, but rather refers to perceived similarities within each group regarding the questions posed, and the evidence adduced, in textual analysis. The historical framework concentrates on the issues of the origins of the tale and the possible historicity of its main protagonist. The pre-Christian framework covers the theories of the shamanic, Indo-European and Celtic elements in the text, whereas the Christian framework includes readings emphasising the biblical, monastic and ascetic aspects of the tale. The anthropological framework in turn focuses on the parallels drawn between the narrative and the universal structure of the rites of passage. In addition to the examination of these four frameworks, the study also links the question of methodology with wider issues of authorship and textual integrity, and critically reconsiders the manner in which J.G. O'Keeffe's 1913 edition of the text has been reified in previous scholarship as a representation of a 12th century authorial original. The overall objective of the present case-study is to relate theoretical conceptions of literary theory, comparative religion and historiography to the study of early Irish narrative material by considering the communal and institutional dimension of meaning-making, and the implications of comparative methodology for historical research. In this aim, the prevailing methodological presuppositions informing the scholarly discourse on Buile Shuibhne are set against the wider context of Celtic Studies scholarship, in order to draw attention to the need to critically reflect upon the operations of knowledge production in future research.

Text and Intensification of Its Impact in Chishti Samā`

In my master’s thesis I analyse mystical Islamic poetry in ritualistic performance context, samā` , focusing on the poetry used by the Chishti Sufis. The work is based on both literary sources and ethnographic material collected in India. The central textual source is Surūd-i Rūhānī, a compilation of mystical poetry. Textual sources, however, can be understood properly only in relation to the living performance context and therefore I also utilise interviews of Sufis and performers of mystical music and recordings of samā` assemblies along with texts. First part of the thesis concentrates on thematic overview of the poems and the process of selecting a suitable text for performance. The poems are written in three languages, viz. in Persian, Urdu and Hindi. Among the authors are both Sufis and non-Sufis. The poems, mystical and non-mystical alike, share the same poetic images and they acquire a mystical meaning when they are set to qawwali music and performed in samā` assemblies. My work includes several translations of verses not previously translated. Latter part of the thesis analyses the musical idiom of qawwali and the ways in which the impact of text on listeners is intensified in performance. Typically the intensification is accomplished in the level of a single poem through three different techniques: using introductory verses, inserting verses between the verses of the main poem and repeating individual units of text. The former two techniques are tied to creating a mystical state in the listeners while the latter aims at sustaining it. It is customary that a listener enraptured by mystical experience offers a monetary contribution to the performers. Thus, intensification of the text’s impact aims at enabling the listeners to experience mystical states.

Abductive translation studies : The art of marshalling signs

This dissertation contributes to the fields of theoretical translation studies, semiotic translation theory, and the semiotics of translation. The aim of this work is to explore the alternative and potential which the semiotic approaches to translation entail from the viewpoint of contemporary translation studies. The overall objective is thus to show that a general semiotic translation theory, and in particular, a Peircean translation theory, are possible and indispensable. Furthermore, this study contributes to the semiotranslational approach and to its theory-building by developing the concept of abductive translation (studies). The specific theoretical frame of reference adopted in this study is provided by the semiotranslation introduced by Dinda L. Gorlée. This approach is primarily based on the semeiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 1914), and aims at a fusion of semiotics and translation studies. A more general framework is provided by the threefold background and material: the published and unpublished writings of Peirce, Peirce scholarship and Peircean-semiotic publications, as well as the translation-theoretical literature. Part One of this study concentrates on the justification, existence, and nature of the semiotic approaches to translation. This part provides a historical survey, a status report, and a discussion of this area of research, by employing the findings in a boundary-clearing that is multilayered both conceptually and terminologically. Part Two deals with Peircean semiotranslation. Here Gorlée s semiotranslational research is examined by focusing on the starting points, features, and development of semiotranslation. Attention is also paid to the state-of-the-art of semiotranslation theory and to the possibilities for future elaborations. Part Three focuses on the semiotranslational claim that translation is an abductive activity. The concept of abductive translation is based on abduction, one of Peirce s three modes of reasoning; at the same time Firstness, the category of abduction, becomes foregrounded. So abductive translation as a form of possibilistic translation receives here an extensive theoretical discussion by citing examples in which abduction manifests itself as (scientific) reasoning and as everyday contemplation. During this treatise, translation is first equated with sign action, then with interpretation and finally with reasoning. All these approaches appear to embody different facets of the same phenomenon Peirce s ubiquitous semiosis, and they all suggest that translation is inherently an intersemiotic activity in which a sign is inferred from another sign. Translation is therefore semiosis, semiosis is translation and interpretation, interpretation is reasoning, and so on ad infinitum all being manifestations of the art of marshalling signs. The three parts of this study are linked by the overall goal of abductive translation studies: investigation into abductive translation develops the theory of semiotranslation, and this enrichment of semiotranslation in turn constructs a semiotic paradigm within translation studies.

Recipient v russkom razgovore : o raspredelenii funkcij mezhdu otvetami da, nu i tak

The study investigates actions by recipients in spontaneous Russian conversations by focusing on DA, NU and TAK, when they are used as responses to the main speaker's larger on-going turn. The database for the study consists of some 7 hours of spontaneous conversations. The participants of the conversations come from different parts of Russia. The use of DA, NU and TAK was analyzed by applying the method of ethnomethodological conversation analysis from the point of view of the type of the context, the sequential placement of the response and its manner of production. The particles were analyzed both in contexts in which they responded to an informing and in affective contexts. The particles NU and TAK were used by the speakers almost exclusively in informing contexts, whereas DA was the central response type in affective contexts. DA was also the most common response to information with affective implications. The information, to which the particle NU provided as response, was often unspesific and projected a spesification or explanation by its speaker as the next action. DA and TAK, by contrast, treated the information as one that could be followed and was sufficient in its local context. As a response to parenthetical information NU responded to information that was only loosely connected with the mainline of talk. The particle DA, by contrast, was used as a response to such parenthetical information, which was more crucial for the larger on-going activity. Only NU was used as a response that invited the main speaker to continue a turn that she or he had offered as possibly complete. NU was also used by the recipient after her or his own contribution as a continuer. In affective contexts, DA expressed, depending on its more spesific context, not only agreement but also other functions, such as giving up arguing or prior knowledge on the topic being discussed. In addition DA responses were used to display empathy and identification with the state of affairs expressed by the co-participant. NU, by contrast, was seldom used as a response to a turn that expressed affect. When it was used in affective contexts, it displayed agreement with the co-participant or just registered an assessment by her or him.

Pour une éthique du traducteur poéticien

This doctoral thesis starts with a comprehensive introduction seeking to anchor the problematics of the ethics of the poetician translator (a translator of literary and similar texts) in a theoretical framework drawing on moral philosophy. This introductory section is followed by six published papers (four journal articles and two papers from conference proceedings), forming the main body of the thesis, which progressively develop a possible application of this theoretical framework. Starting from the acknowledgement that one of the ethical stakes in translation is constructed around the relation to the foreign and to the other , the translation process is scrutinized through the prism of the philosophies of Dialogue , focusing on how the translating actors relate to their task. The central notions around which philosophies of Dialogue are built are introduced and applied to translation. The question of intersubjective relations, addressed from a philosophical perspective, is developed with the help of the works of Martin Buber, Gabriel Marcel, Emmanuel Levinas and Paul Ric ur. The introductory section presents and explicates the thought of each of these philosophers and extracts the concepts that are then developed in the articles and conference papers collected here. Each paper concentrates on the notions of one of the philosophers referred to above and places these notions in perspective with other philosophies of Dialogue. All the papers contribute to explicating the relationship between the multiple philosophical notions that address the problematics of alterity and the condition of the translator. The work as a whole leads to the idea that the task of the poetician translator is not only to translate a text properly but above all to rouse and increase the desire of linguistic communities to live together.

A cross-linguistic study of lexical iconicity and its manifestation in bird names

Abstract This dissertation is a cross-linguistic study of lexical iconicity. The study is based on a genealogically stratified sample of 237 languages. The aim is to contribute with an empirical study to the growing dialogue focusing on different forms of lexical iconicity. The conceptual framework of the present study is based on an analysis of types and means of lexical iconicity in the sample languages. Archaeological and cultural evidence are used to tie lexical iconicity to its context. Phenomena related to lexical iconicity are studied both cross-linguistically and language-specifically. The cognitive difference between imitation and symbolism is essential. Lexical iconicity is not only about the iconic relationship between form and referents, but also about how certain iconic properties may become conventional, means used to create sound symbolism. All the sample languages show some evidence of lexical iconicity, demonstrating that it is a universal feature. Nine comparisons of onomatopoeic verbs and nouns, with samples varying between six and 141 languages, show that typologically highly different languages use similar means for creating words based on sound imitation. Two cross-linguistic comparisons of bird names demonstrate that a vast majority of the Eurasian names of the common cuckoo and the world-wide names of crow and raven of the 141 genera are onomatopoeic.

Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate methods in corpus-based lexicography : A study of synonymy

In this dissertation, I present an overall methodological framework for studying linguistic alternations, focusing specifically on lexical variation in denoting a single meaning, that is, synonymy. As the practical example, I employ the synonymous set of the four most common Finnish verbs denoting THINK, namely ajatella, miettiä, pohtia and harkita ‘think, reflect, ponder, consider’. As a continuation to previous work, I describe in considerable detail the extension of statistical methods from dichotomous linguistic settings (e.g., Gries 2003; Bresnan et al. 2007) to polytomous ones, that is, concerning more than two possible alternative outcomes. The applied statistical methods are arranged into a succession of stages with increasing complexity, proceeding from univariate via bivariate to multivariate techniques in the end. As the central multivariate method, I argue for the use of polytomous logistic regression and demonstrate its practical implementation to the studied phenomenon, thus extending the work by Bresnan et al. (2007), who applied simple (binary) logistic regression to a dichotomous structural alternation in English. The results of the various statistical analyses confirm that a wide range of contextual features across different categories are indeed associated with the use and selection of the selected think lexemes; however, a substantial part of these features are not exemplified in current Finnish lexicographical descriptions. The multivariate analysis results indicate that the semantic classifications of syntactic argument types are on the average the most distinctive feature category, followed by overall semantic characterizations of the verb chains, and then syntactic argument types alone, with morphological features pertaining to the verb chain and extra-linguistic features relegated to the last position. In terms of overall performance of the multivariate analysis and modeling, the prediction accuracy seems to reach a ceiling at a Recall rate of roughly two-thirds of the sentences in the research corpus. The analysis of these results suggests a limit to what can be explained and determined within the immediate sentential context and applying the conventional descriptive and analytical apparatus based on currently available linguistic theories and models. The results also support Bresnan’s (2007) and others’ (e.g., Bod et al. 2003) probabilistic view of the relationship between linguistic usage and the underlying linguistic system, in which only a minority of linguistic choices are categorical, given the known context – represented as a feature cluster – that can be analytically grasped and identified. Instead, most contexts exhibit degrees of variation as to their outcomes, resulting in proportionate choices over longer stretches of usage in texts or speech.

Ruumiillinen esine, materiaalinen suku : Tutkimus Pyhä Anna itse kolmantena -aiheisista keskiajan puuveistoksista Suomessa

Embobied Object, Material Family. Late-Medieval Wood Sculptures Depicting Saint Anne with the Virgin and Child in Finland Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, was one of the most popular saints in Western Europe in the late Middle Ages. She was often depicted with two other figures, the Virgin and the Christ Child (Anna Selbdritt). The dissertation examines the polychrome wood sculptures showing this motif, with a special focus on those remaining in Finland. It investigates the meanings these sculptures had to their observers in the fifteenth-century Finland. The study sheds light to important material heritage which is little known and offers new insights into the cult and imagery of the holy grandmother. Methodologically the study is based on iconology and post-formalist art history, and it appropriates concepts such as spatiality, sanctity, corporeality, and gender. Taking a comparative approach it knits together larger tendencies and local people and incidents. By conflating methodological domains it renews the ways how fragmentary wood sculptures, lacking documentary written sources, can be contextually interpreted and comprehended. The sculptures are analyzed from three angles. Firstly, the study explores the sculptures by focusing on their materiality and facture, which is to consider them as records of their own making. The analysis provides new information concerning the quantity, location, and current condition of the sculptures and it also elucidates problems regarding attribution, dating, display, and craftsmanship. The book presents the results of the empirical study of 45 Saint Anne groups; these works are individually described in the large Appendix. Secondly, the works are contextualized to the specific historical conditions in which they were observed. The study discusses closely the circumstances in the Turku Cathedral around the shrine of Saint Anne, the popular belief, and the piety of individual persons. The sculptures, deemed as the embodiments of the holy characters, interacted with the devotees. Thirdly, the works are examined within the wider theological and ideological currents of the era centered on the body and Incarnation. Saint Anne with the Virgin and Child motif demonstrated the Carnal Trinity, the motherly side of the Holy Trinity. The dissertation argues that Saint Anne was interpreted as the female counterpart or, in a mythical sense, wife of God. Furthermore, the Child s implicit, simultaneous presence as a suffering or dead man imbues the sculptures with a sense of the Passion, thus associating them with the pietà and the Mater dolorosa motifs. The naked Christ Child underlines him as the offering and, eventually, the Eucharistic wafer. The study suggests that the sculptures mediate continuity and the bloodline between the generations by the intertwined and repeated gestures, clothing and positions of the portrayed figures. Regardless of the ostensible homeliness of the sculptures, so readily reiterated by earlier scholars, these sculptures represented creation and birth through the carnal yet holy mothers.

Rossijskaja Karelija i karely v imperskoi politike Rossii, 1905-1917

Russian Karelians were one of the small peasant nations of the Russian Empire that began to identify themselves as nations during the late imperial period. At that historical moment Russian Karelia fell between an economically undeveloped empire and the rapidly modernizing borderland of Finland. The economic and cultural lure of Finland drew Karelians into the Finnish camp. This attraction was seen as a challenge to Russia and influenced the straggle between Russia and Finland for the Karelians. This struggle was waged from 1905 to 1917. This work is focused on the beginning stage of the struggle, its various phases, and their results. The confrontation extended into different dimensions (economic, political, ideological, church and cultural politics) and occurred on two levels: central and regional. Countermeasures against local nationalisms developed much earlier both in Russia and in other empires for use were also used in the Russian Karelian case. Economic policies were deployed to try to make relations with Russia more alluring for Karelians and to improve their economic condition. However, these efforts produced only minimal results due to the economic weakness of the empire and a lack of finances. Fear of the economic integration of the Karelians and Finns, which would have stimulated the economy of the Karelia, also hindered these attempts. The further development of the Orthodox Church, the schools and the zemstvos in Karelia yielded fewer results than expected due to the economic underdevelopment of the region and the avoidance of the Finnish language. Policizing measures were the most successfull, as all activities in Russian Karelia by the Finns were entirely halted in practice. However, the aspiration of Russian Karelians to integrate their home districts with Finland remained a latent force that just waited for an opportunity to push to the surface again. Such a chance materialized with the Russian revolution. The Karelian question was also a part of Russian domestic political confrontation. At the and of the 1800s, the Russian nationalist right had grown strong and increasingly gained the favor of the autocracy. The right political forces exploited the Karelian question in its anti-Finnish ideology and in its general resistance to the national emancipation of the minority peoples of Russia. A separate ideology was developed, focusing on the closeness of Karelians to the "great Russian people." Simultaneously, this concept found a place in the ultramonarchist myth of the particularly close connection between the people and tsar that was prominent in the era of Nicholas II. This myth assigned the Karelians a place amongst the "simple people" faithful to the tsar.

Nuori konservatiivi : Tuure Junnila ja hänen poliittinen toimintansa vuoteen 1956

Tuure Junnila, PhD (1910-1999) was one of Finland's most renowned conservative politicians of the post-war period. Junnila is remembered primarily as a persistent opponent of Urho Kekkonen, a long-term Member of Parliament, a conspicuous opposition member and a prolific political writer. Junnila's ideologies and political views were conservative, and he is one of the most outstanding figures in the history of the National Coalition Party. Junnila also made an extensive career outside of politics, first as an economist and then as an executive of Finland's leading commercial bank Kansallis-Osake-Pankki. The Young Conservative is a partial biography written using traditional historical research methods, which examines Junnila's personal history and his activity in public life up to 1956. The study begins by investigating Junnila's background through his childhood, school years, university studies and early professional career. It also looks at Junnila's work as an economist and practical banker. Particular attention is paid to Junnila's political work, constantly focusing on the following five often overlapping areas: (1) economic policy, (2) domestic policy, (3) foreign and security policy, (4) Junnila and Urho Kekkonen, (5) Junnila, the Coalition Party and Finnish conservatism. In his economic policy, Junnila emphasised the importance of economic stability, opposed socialisation and the growth of public expenditure, defended the free market system and private entrepreneurship, and demanded tax cuts. This policy was very popular within the Coalition Party during the early 1950s, making Junnila the leading conservative economic politician of the time. In terms of domestic policy, Junnila demanded as early as the 1940s that a "third force" should be established in Finland to counterbalance the agrarian and labour parties by uniting conservative and liberal ideologies under the same roof. Foreign and security policy is the area of Junnila's political activity which is most clearly situated after the mid-1950s. However, Junnila's early speeches and writings already show a striving towards the unconditional neutrality modelled by Switzerland and Sweden and a strong emphasis on Finland's right to internal self-determination. Junnila, as did the Coalition Party as a whole, adopted a consistently critical approach towards Urho Kekkonen between 1951 and 1956, but this attitude was not as bluntly negative and all-round antagonistic as many previous studies have implied. Junnila was one of the leading Finnish conservatives of the early 1950s and in all essence his views were analogous to the general alignment of the Coalition Party at the time: conservative in ideology and general policy, and liberal in economic policy.

Approaching Sacred Pregnancy : The Cult of the Visitation and Narrative Altarpieces in Late Fifteenth-Century Florence

The study focuses on the Visitation as a narrative subject of altarpieces in late fifteenth-century Florence. Although the Visitation was a well-known story in both verbal and visual representations since the early medieval period, it became a popular subject of altarpieces only towards the end of the fifteenth century. In this study, the first part provides an overview of the complex religious and historical background to an emerging cult of the Visitation. Devotional practices focusing on the Visitation belong in a context of late medieval Marian devotion and in 1389 a new feast of the Visitation was introduced into the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. Because of the ongoing schism within the Catholic Church, the feast was not unanimously accepted across Western Europe until the later part of the fifteenth century. Contrary to a widely disseminated view, the feast of the Visitation cannot be associated with Franciscan spirituality, but was rather a clearly defined Dominican project that primarily emphasised the importance of peace and unity within the Christian Church. Simultaneously with the gradual acceptance of the new feast, visual representations of the Visitation began to appear at the centre of altarpieces. The Visitation exemplifies an increasing preference for narrative subjects within the genre of the altarpiece. The second part of the study presents an analysis of the concept of the narrative altarpiece and highlights the complexities involved in combining a narrative content with the traditional devotional function of the altarpiece. In detailed case studies some prominent art works produced in Florence between 1490 and 1503 are discussed within a framework of contextual analysis, narrative theory and iconography. Altarpieces by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Piero di Cosimo and Mariotto Albertinelli represent visual manifestations of a cult of the Visitation with roots in late medieval devotional practices. At the same time, the altarpieces highlight the multiple functions of altarpieces in a culture where art works responded to a variety of social and religious needs. Building on earlier studies, each case study presents new insights and evidence not considered in previous art historical research.

Olla elävän sanat : Roolirunon laji Maila Pylkkösen teoksessa Arvo. Vanhaäiti puhuu runonsa

Maila Pylkkönen (1931 1986) was one of the most important modernist poets in Finland and a central figure in developing the dramatic monologue in Finnish literature. The study examines Pylkkönen s poetic work Arvo. Vanhaäiti puhuu runonsa (Value. An old woman speaks her poem, 1959) as an example of the dramatic monologue, approaching it from three perspectives: its generic features and background, and the poetic framework to which it connects in the context of Pylkkönen s poetry. In addition to methods of literary scholarship, the poetic analysis benefits from a linguistic approach. The study shows that the dramatic monologue genre drives Pylkkönen s first work, Klassilliset tunteet (Classical feelings, 1957), in a context of finding poetic identity, characterised by the expression to be the words of a living creature . The study demonstrates that important generic features of the dramatic monologue, namely, a poem representing a speech-event and a hierarchical structure, are also Arvo s most significant generic features. Arvo s poems as speech-events are examined for their internal progressive, pragmatic unity constructed through single line units; for their function as narratives dealing with the life story of an old woman, Arvo s speaker; and from the perspective of the communication between the old woman and the poems other characters. Arvo s speech-events can also be seen as semantic shifts from one poem to another: the poems construct semantic stages representing different phases of the old woman s life. The study demonstrates that analysis of Arvo s hierarchical structure, that is, the relationship between the speaker and the rhetorical levels, reveals the work s structural and ideological wholeness by focusing on the old woman s emotions: longing, loneliness and alienation from the world. In other words, the contradictions between the explicit level of the speaker and an implied rhetorical level open up the tragedy of an old woman s daily life. Study of Arvo s hierarchical structure also highlights the special position of the reader in the framework of a dramatic monologue. The elements of a dramatic present in which the old woman s emotions are conveyed, an italicized opening poem, and the work s title Value invite the reader to consider Arvo as a structural and ideological whole. The function of Arvo s hierarchical structure is to ask the reader to recognise the hopelessness of the old woman s situation, understand it, and even identify with it.