Faster for the master! : exploring issues of religious expression and alternative Christian identity within the Finnish Christian metal music scene

Populärkulturen har i dagens läge kommit att utgöra en allt mer viktig och central inspirationskälla för allt fler människors konstruktion av den egna religiösa identiteten även inom traditionella och institutionella kristna sammanhang. Denna avhandling belyser denna utveckling i ljuset av den finländska kristna metallmusik-kulturen - en sällsynt stark sammanblanding av protestantisk kristendom och en utpräglad och kontroversiell populärmusikform och dess kultur. Fokus riktas framför allt på hur den kristna metallmusik-kulturen blir meningsfull för sina medlemmar genom de sätt på vilka den konstrueras diskursivt, dvs. genom de sätt på vilka den representeras och talas om bland sina egna anhängare. Den diskursiva konstruktionen av den kristna metallmusik-kulturen utforskas på ett såväl bredare transnationellt som ett finländskt nationellt plan. Studien redogör även för den kristna metalmusikens och -kulturens huvudsakliga verbala, visuella och estetiska kännetecken. Uppbyggnaden och spridningen av dagens transnationella kristna metallmusik-kultur undersöks även i ljuset av det teoretiska konceptet scene. Avhandlingens centrala argument är att den kristna metallmusikscenen erbjuder sina medlemmar en mängd resurser för skapandet av ett alternativt och komplementärt religiöst uttrycksätt, religiös praxis och en alternativ kristen identitet.

Jordbrukaren mellan tradition och förnyelse : en studie av syd- och västfinländska jordbrukare i EU-Finland

Syftet med denna avhandling var att undersöka hur förändringarna i det agrara samhället påverkar den enskilda jordbrukarens livskoncept. Teorin som ligger till grund för förståelsen anknyter till moderniseringen, som framtvingat nya metoder och ett jordbruk med stark förankring i marknaden. Europeiska unionen har för jordbrukarna betytt nya rutiner och tvång att uppfylla bestämda regelverk. Den empiriska analysen berör frågor jordbrukarna tvingas tänka igenom på det personliga planet. Därtill behandlas viktiga strategier som är betydelsefulla för framtiden med dithörande ökad ekonomisk risk. Nyckelbegreppet kallar jag livskoncept. Livskonceptet består av känslan av sammanhang enligt Aaron Antonovskys defi nition, i förening med livspolitiken så som Anthony Giddens beskriver den. Livskonceptet är en kombination av meningsfullhet, begriplighet och hanterbarhet, jämte livskontroll, självbestämmande, förtroende, emancipation och identitet. Dessa är element som jordbrukaren tvingas leva med i beslutsprocessen och som utgör grund för livskvalitet. Avhandling är baserad på intervjuer med 46 jordbrukare i olika ålder från Österbotten, Åboland och Nyland. Jordbrukarna i undersökningen var noga utvalda och representerar jordbrukets olika inriktningar. Under intervjuerna behandlades olika teman, som förutom rena jordbruksproblem också tangerade sociala angelägenheter som ensamhet, stress och jämbördighet med andra yrkesgrupper. Därtill återspeglas jordbrukets situation i andra länder genom diskussioner som förts med olika utländska experter och jordbrukare. Känslan av identitet och stolthet var stark hos samtliga intervjuade. Jordbrukare i åldern 39–52 år visade sig ha det starkaste livskonceptet och de äldre i intervallet 53–69 år det svagaste ett resultat av den snabba förändringen i det agrara samhället. De yngsta under 38 år håller fortfarande på att söka sin plats och att besluta om i vilken riktning de önskar utvidga sin verksamhet och har därför inte hunnit utforma sitt livskoncept. Ett genomgående pro b lem är att man inte känner sig jämställd med andra yrkesgrupper. De centrala begreppen är: det agrara samhället, modernisering, globalisering, jordbrukartyp, risker, expertsystem och livskoncept.

Rukoile ja työtä tee. Onni Puhakan kehitys innovaattorista oman tien kulkijaksi

Pray and work. The development of Onni Puhakka: from innovator to nonconformist This ethnological biographical study examines the modernization which began in the mid-1800s, continued into the mid-1900s, and has changed Finnish society in many ways. This era has been studied on a general level quite extensively, but this work explores the life and everyday experiences of Onni Puhakka (1870−1955), a farmer who spent most of his life in the town of Liperi. The goal is to find new perspectives on the development of the modernization process in society through the experiences of an individual. In this study, a central theme is the rural co-operative movement represented in Finland by Pellervo as well as its development in this country and as a significant undertaking in Onni Puhakka’s life. The co-operative movement was one of the most significant sectors affecting modernization in rural communities. The main character in the study is the grandfather of the present author, and thus this research belongs to the newly accepted ethnological research tradition of studying one’s own community. Written documents, mainly collected and preserved by Onni Puhakka himself during his lifetime, form the research material. The material consists mainly of Puhakka’s extensive correspondence, personal notes and diaries, documents related to his farm, and photographs taken by him. Earlier research and other written material examining the general development of the period were used to provide a background for the study. The co-operative movement formed a comprehensive ideology for Onni Puhakka, in which the possibilities for the development of both individuals and the community were combined. His life was based on a religious conviction, and he felt that the co-operative movement was the application of Christian love for one’s neighbour in practice. At the beginning of his active working career, Puhakka was an innovator, a reformer at the forefront of progress, but quite soon he became a sworn critic of the development of the co-operative movement in particular. One of Puhakka’s criticisms of the co-operative movement was the shifting of decision-making power to professional managers and central organizations, far from the reach of local actors. A fundamental reason for his dissatisfaction was the development within the co-operative movement in which the ideological background was forgotten, and economic goals and making a profit took an excessive significance. This assessment of the co-operative movement made by Onni Puhakka and his predictions about its development were not unfounded. This has been shown by several studies examining the development of both the Pellervo and working class cooperative movements. The professionalization of management, managerialism, as well as the direct links between professional managers of local co-operatives and central organizations have lead to the situation in which fewer and fewer people make the decisions, and management has as its goal economic success and growth. Co-operative enterprises that have grown in size have become estranged from the everyday life of their members. Instead of taking care of relations with the membership of the co-op, competitive ability and the market share have become the most important concerns of the management. As the membership has become alienated, their interest in large-scale co-ops has also become largely economic. A significant change among the membership of the Pellervo movement occurred at the stage when the co-operative movement shifted from rural areas to urban centres. This meant that the commitment of the membership became much looser than it had been in the farmers’ production and consumer co-ops. From the point of view of its members, the nature of the co-operative movement has become diametrically opposed to its point of departure: the active members who previously formed the subject of the co-operative movement have become the object of the economic activities of that same movement. The co-operative movement has been transformed from the progressive agent of change of its early years into a business activity which no longer has any significant task as a social reformer. This study confirms the observations of the latest research on modernization which states that modernization has not been a straightforward and inevitable development that has lead to the present situation. For example, the criticism directed by Puhakka toward the co-operative movement includes information that shows that a few others who were initially actively involved also criticized the development of the movement. Despite his occasional frustration, Onni Puhakka continued his criticism and attempts to get the co-operative movement to change its course and return to its ‘roots’. In the early years of the cooperative movement he probably did not differ much from the other pioneers in the sense that many of them had adopted and internalized the same values and motive for being involved that he had. However, Puhakka differed from his colleagues in the sense that he was able to believe in what he called the “fundamental values” of the co-operative movement longer than many of them.

St. Petersburg Court Chant and the Tradition of Eastern Slavic Church Singing

The present study examines the repertory of liturgical chant known as St. Petersburg Court Chant which emerged within the Imperial Court of St. Petersburg, Russia, and appeared in print in a number of revisions during the course of the 19th century, eventually to spread throughout the Russian Empire and even abroad. The study seeks answers to questions on the essence and composition of Court Chant, its history and liturgical background, and most importantly, its musical relationship to other repertories of Eastern Slavic chant. The research questions emerge from previous literary accounts of Court Chant (summarized in the Introduction), which have tended to be inaccurate and generally not based on critical research. The study is divided into eight main chapters. Chapter 1 provides a survey of the history of Eastern Slavic chant and the Imperial Court Chapel of St. Petersburg until 1917, with special emphasis on the history of singing traditional chant in polyphony, the status of the Court Chapel as a government authority, and its endeavours in publishing church music. Chapter 2 deals with the liturgical background of Eastern chant, the chant genres, and main repertories of Eastern Slavic chant. Chapter 3 concentrates on chant sources: it introduces the musical notations utilised, after which a typology of chant books is presented. The discussion continues with a survey of the sources of Court Chant and their content, the specimens selected for closer analysis, the comparative materials from other repertories, and ends with a commentary on some chant sources that have been excluded. The comparative sources include a specimen from around the beginning of the 12th century, a few manuscripts from the 17th century, and printed and manuscript chant books from the early 18th to early 20th century, covering the geographical area that delimits to the western Ukraine, Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod, and the Solovetsky Monastery. Chapter 4 presents the approach and methods used in the subsequent analytical comparisons. After a survey of the pitch organization of Eastern Slavic chant, the customary harmonization strategy of traditional chant polyphony is examined, according to which a method for meaningful analysis of the harmony is proposed. The method is based on the observation that the harmonic framework of chant polyphony derives from the standard pitch collection of monodic chant known as the Church Gamut, specific pitches of which form eight harmonic regions that behave like the usual tonalities of major and harmonic minor. Because of the considerable quantity of comparative chant forms, computer-assisted statistical methods are applied to the analysis of chant melodies. The primary chant forms and their respective comparative forms have been pre-processed into reduced chant prototypes and divided into redactions. The analyses are carried out by measuring the formal dissimilarities of the primary chant forms of the Court Chant repertory against each comparative form, and also by measuring the reciprocal dissimilarities of all chant versions in a redaction, the results of which are subjected to agglomerative hierarchical clustering in order to find out how the chant forms relate to each other. The dissimilarities are determined by applying a metric dissimilarity function that is based on the Levenshtein Distance. Chapter 5 provides the melodic and harmonic analyses of generic chants (chants used for multiple texts of different lengths), i.e., chants for stichera samoglasny and troparia, Chapter 6 of pseudo-generic chants (chants that are used for multiple texts but with certain restrictions), i.e., chants for heirmoi, prokeimena, and three other hymns, and Chapter 7 of non-generic chants, covering nine chants that in the Court repertory are not shared by multiple texts. The results are summarized and evaluated in Chapter 8. Accordingly, it can be established that, contrary to previous conceptions, melodically, Court Chant is in effect a full part of the wider Eastern Slavic chant tradition. Even if it is somewhat detached from the chant versions of the Synodal square-note chant books and the local tradition of Moscow, it is particularly close to chant forms of East Ukraine and some vernacular repertories from Russia. Respectively, the harmonization strategies of Court Chant do not show significant individuality in comparison with those of the available polyphonic comparative sources, the main difference being the part-writing, which generally conforms to western common practice standard, whereas the deviations from this tend to be more significant in other analysed repertories of polyphonic chant. Thus, insofar as the subsequent prevalence of Court Chant is not based on its forceful dissemination by authorities (as suggested in previous literature but for which little tangible evidence could be found in Chapter 1), in the present author’s interpretation, Court Chant attained its dominance principally because musically it was considered sufficiently traditional, and as a chant body supported by the government, was conveniently available in print in serviceable harmonizations.

Liedermacher in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland : Folge 2: Auf der Suche nach der verschütteten Tradition: Peter Rohland und die Gebrüder Kröher

Saksalaista laulelmamusiikkia käsittelevä ohjelma musiikkinäyttein.

Kirjallisilla merkityksillä kuormitettu kaupunki: Hannu Raittilan Canal Grande ja tradition kerrostumat

Hannu Raittilan Venetsiaan sijoittuva romaani Canal Grande (2001) on läpeensä intertekstuaalinen. Se viittaa paitsi tunnettuun Venetsia-kirjallisuuteen myös lukemattomiin taideteoksiin ja kulttuurihistoriallisiin kerrostumiin. Artikkelissa tutkitaan Canal Granden kirjallisen näyttämön ja romaanin tematiikan välistä yhteyttä sekä henkilöhahmojen kytkeytymistä commedia dell’arte -perinteeseen, johon romaani viittaa suoraan paitsi henkilöiden välisissä keskusteluissa myös kuvaamalla Venetsian karnevaalia.

Att tala om det osägbara : Nicolaus Cusanus cirkulära filosofi i verket De coniecturis med särskild hänsyn till Nelson Pikes tankar om unio mystica

In my dissertation called Speaking of the unsayable: The circular philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa in his work De coniecturis, I presuppose an internal (conceptual) relation between the personal experience of God of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64) in 1438 and, on the other hand, his philosophy. I hence try to describe the precise character of this relation. Referring to the Norwegian scholars Egil Wyller and Viggo Rossvær, I assume that there is a circularity in Cusanus’ philosophy which appears as self-references (= a sentence refers to itself: A is explained by B and B is explained by A). Wyller finds three phases in the thought of Cusanus (1. De docta ignorantia I-III, 2. De coniecturis I-II, 3. all subsequent works). Rossvær finds it impossible to presuppose certain phases, as the philosophy of Cusanus continuously proceeds and remains open to new ideas. As Cusanus however treats his experience of God far more consciously in his second work De coniecturis than in De docta ignorantia, I find it possible to distinguish between the earlier Cusanus (De docta ignorantia including his earlier works) and the later Cusanus (De coniecturis, about 1444, as well as the following works). Cusanus creates a philosophy of language in outline expressed in De coniecturis, in which he presents two concepts of necessity, i.e. absolute necessity and logical, or reasonable, necessity. These are interrelated in the sense that the mind, or the self, logically affirms the absolute, or unsayable, necessity, which shows itself in the mind and which the mind affirms conjecturally. The endeavour conceptually to understand absolute necessity implies intuitive (or intellectual) contemplation, or vision (investigatio symbolica), in which the four mental unities (the absolute, the intellectual, the rational and the sensuous) work together according to the rules described in De coniecturis. In De coniecturis Cusanus obviously turns from a negative concept of the unsayable to a paradigmatic, which implies that he looks for principles of speaking of the unsayable and presents the idea of a divine language (divinaliter). However, he leaves this idea behind after De coniecturis, although he continues to create new concepts of the unsayable and incomprehensible. The intellectual language of absolute seeing is expressed in the subjunctive, i.e. conditionally. In order to describe the unsayable, Cusanus uses tautologies, the primary one of which is a concept of God, i.e. non aliud est non aliud quam non aliud (the non-other is non-other than the nonother). Wyller considers this the crucial point of the philosophy of Cusanus (De non aliud), described by the latter as the definition of definitions, i.e. the absolute definition. However, this definition is empty regarding its content. It demonstrates that God surpasses the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) and that he is “superunsayable” (superineffabilis), i.e. he is beyond what can be conceived or said. Nothing hence prevents us from speaking of him, provided that he is described as unsayable (= the paradigmatic concept of the unsayable). Here the mode of seeing is decisive. Cusanus in this context (and especially in his later literary production) uses modalities which concern possibility and necessity. His aim is to conduct any willing reader ahead on the way of life (philosophia mentalis). In De coniecturis II he describes the notion of human self-consciousness as the basis of spiritual mutuality in accordance with the humanistic tradition of his time. I mainly oppose the negatively determined concept of Christian mysticism presented by the German philosopher Kurt Flasch and prefer the presentation of Burkhard Mojsisch of the translogical and conjectural use of language in De coniecturis. In particular, I take account of the Scandinavian research, basically that of Johannes Sløk, Birgit H. Helander, Egil Wyller and Viggo Rossvær, who all consider the personal experience of God described by Cusanus a tacit precondition of his philosophy.

Sielun pedagogiikkaa -henkinen kasvu osana kokonaisvaltaista kasvatusta Chaitanya vaishnava -tradition gurujen mukaan

Intialaistaustainen Chaitanya vaishnavismi tunnetaan Suomessa yleisemmin nimellä Krishna-liike tai Hare Krishna -uskonto. Länsimaissa se on yksi tunnetuimmista henkisyyden traditioista, jossa toimii guruja eli henkiseen kasvuun erikoistuneita opettajia. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on selvittää Chaitanya vaishnava -gurujen käsityksiä ja kokemuksia henkisestä kasvusta, sen päämääristä ja henkisen edistymisen tuntomerkeistä. Tämän lisäksi tutkimus selvittää minkälaisia pedagogisia menetelmiä Chaitanya vaishnava -gurut käyttävät omien oppilaidensa henkisen edistymisen tukemiseksi. Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu viidestä Chaitanya vaisnava -gurun puolikonstruoidusta teemahaastattelusta. Tämä laadullinen tutkimus pohjautuu fenomenologiseen tutkimusperinteeseen ja tutkimusmenetelmänä on käytetty puolikonstruoitua teemahaastattelua. Aineisto on analysoitu teemoittelemalla. Vaikka haastateltavat edustavat tiettyä henkisyyden perinnettä, heidän näkemyksistään nousi hyvin universaaleja henkisen kasvun teemoja. Kasvatustieteen näkökulmasta erityisen mielenkiintoiseksi osoittautui, että henkisyys ja henkiset harjoitukset voidaan nähdä pedagogisina tiedon ja kokemusmaailman kartuttamisen menetelminä. Henkisten aktiviteettien, kuten meditaation, itsetutkiskelun, pyhien kirjoituksien opiskelun avulla, yksilön on mahdollista saada tietoa ja laajentaa käsityksiään henkisyydestä. Ne ovat henkisen kasvun pedagogisia menetelmiä, joilla oppilaan on mahdollista rakentaa merkityksiä ja suhdettaan henkisyyteen.