Heidi S. Kosonen

• Doctor of Philosophy
• PostDoc Position at University of Jyväskylä

In this doctoral dissertation, I analyze contemporary Anglophone suicide cinema from the perspectives of taboo and biopower. The aim is to investigate, first, how films with suicide participate in the practices of self-willed death’s biopowered regulation. Biopower refers to Michel Foucault’s theories of the regulation of individuals’ lives and dea...

In my article I study two Anglophone feature films, Jeppe Rønde's Bridgend (2015) and Susan Bier's Bird Box (2018), from the viewpoints offered by visual cultural studies and the theoretical domains of taboo and biopower. Both systems of control respond to risks and dangers to society, taboo through ideas of contagion and biopower through normative...

Hate speech against environmental activists has been on the rise globally, alongside a forceful criminalization of the climate movement in Western Europe. This article analyses anti-environmentalist speech and actions against Extinction Rebellion (XR) Finland, an environmental movement that employs non-violent direct action and civil disobedience t...

As both a novel (VanderMeer, 2014) and cinematic adaptation (Garland, 2018), Annihilation has engaged posthumanist and ecocritical scholars seeking to answer to the demand for art forms to participate in the renegotiation of the grand narratives feeding the ongoing environmental crisis and chipping away at the liveability of Planet Earth. In my rea...

In the everyday context, the term “hate speech” has become increasingly politicized and emotionally charged, yet these vernacular constructions of hate speech remain under-explored. Used as both a rhetorical weapon and an object of genuine concern, various understandings of hate speech circulate within interactive everyday cultures of digital media...

Introducing diversity into the white-dominated media business is part of mainstreaming social justice movements. This article addresses Indigenous themes’ and talents’ inclusion in two television series by mainstream production companies from the perspectives of organic representation, inclusivity, and justice. The analysis focuses on Canadian lega...

https://journal.fi/kulttuurintutkimus/article/view/131511 Stigmatisoituna ja vaiettavaksi koodattuna kuolemana itsemurha on aiheena tabuluonteinen etenkin silloin, kun se ei asetu keskustelun kohteeksi abstraktina aiheena tai tieteellisen tiedonintressin lähteenä. Henkilökohtaisella tasolla itsemurhasta tai itsemurhahalusta puhumiseen vaikuttavat...

Vihapuhe on sukupuolittunut ja intersektionaalinen ilmiö, joka kohdistuu erityi­sesti vähemmistöihin ja pyrkii näiden vaientamiseen ja ulossulkemiseen julkisesta keskustelusta. Tarkastelemme artikkelissamme Instagramissa toimivien suoma­laisten kehopositiivisuusaktivistien keinoja vastustaa vihapuhetta ja tuottaa vastapuhetta. Suhteutamme tunnistam...

Museot ovat historiallisesti toimineet identiteettien, normien ja valta-asetelmien rakentajina, tulkitsijoina ja muokkaajina. Nykypäivänä museoissa suhtaudutaan kuitenkin usein kriittisesti niiden historialliseen rooliin. Yhä useammin museoissa pyritään toimimaan yhteiskunnallisen muutoksen tuottajina ja hyödynnetään toisinaan jopa aktivistisia toi...

In the Swedish/Finnish/British/Norwegian television series Jordskott (2015–17) child victims’ mysterious disappearances signal that ‘something’s not right’ in Silverhöjd, a Swedish town. Three detectives uncover a conflict between the locals who depend on a local industry and preternatural human-like but non-human forest creatures familiar from Nor...

The publication explores production and distribution of hate speech in Finland. The project examined the producers and disseminators of hate speech quantitatively (network analysis, classification of messages) and qualitatively (rhetorical and content analysis). Their practices and motives were explored through thematic interviews, internet ethnogr...

Edited journal issue on the gendered politics of hair

In Canadian filmmaker Mary Harron’s The Moth Diaries (a Canadian/American/Irish co-production), exploring adolescent girls’ friendships and self-harm in a boarding school setting, blood is out of place. It drips from the protagonist’s father’s wrist artery, willingly shed in suicide; involuntarily tarnishes her nightgown as menstrual blood; falls o...

Tässä artikkelissa tarkastelen itsemurhan tabuluonteisuuteen ja omaehtoiseen kuolemaan kohdistuvaan biovaltaan liittyviä kysymyksiä Ari Asterin Midsommar – loputon yö -folk-kauhuelokuvassa (2019). Keskityn yhtäältä itsemurhaan tabuluonteisena kuolemana, joka on samanaikaisesti näkymätön ja ylenpalttisen näkyvä, vaiettu ja pornoistunut. Toisaalta ke...

This research examines the impact of hate speech on public decision-making processes as well as its scale and quality. The research is based on 14 semi-structured interviews, a database of discussions from Twitter and a survey sent to Finnish councils and the parliament (n=1393). According to the survey experience of hate speech is widespread: A th...

Artikkeli käsittelee kahden itsemurhaa kuvaavan populaarikulttuurin tapausesimerkin, The Moth Diaries -elokuvan ja 13 Reasons Why -sarjan, ja tabun käsitteen välityksellä itsemurhaan liitettyä tartunnan pelkoa ja tämän pelon ilmenemistä viihteen ja median representaatioita säätelevässä Werther-efektissä. Keväällä 2017 julkaistun kohutun 13 Reasons...

https://tahiti.journal.fi/article/view/66855/27151 A peer-reviewed article of the taboo as analyzed through two distinct visual cultural controversies from spring 2017, both of them united by the figure of the child: the “Moomin of Finland”-gate – three cover pictures for Image Magazine by Sami Saramäki, of moomin characters geared up in Tom of Fi...

This Finnish-language article, published in an edited book by Sanna Karkulehto and Leena-Maija Rossi (Sukupuoli ja väkivalta: lukemisen etiikkaa ja politiikkaa, SKS: Helsinki, 2017), considers the gendered politics of suicide both manifested in and challenged by the 2014 horror film Unfriended.

In the fifth episode of the latest season of the popular fantasy series Game of Thrones, May 2016, the grand audiences were confronted with the death of the character Hodor, the “gentle giant” who had meekly, mutely accompanied the crippled Bran Stark on his mission ever since the show’s first episode in 2011. Hodor’s faith was sealed in the outcry...

http://www.elore.fi/ruoasta-kaukaa-mutta-lahelta-symbolinen-ruoka-antropologisen-tutkimuksen-kohteena/ Kirja-arvostelu artikkelikokoelmasta Ruoan kulttuuri. Antropologisia näkökulmia ruoan tutkimukseen (Toim. Uusihakala, Katja & Matti Eräsaari. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2016).

In the fifth episode of the latest season of the popular fantasy series Game of Thrones, May 2016, the grand audiences were confronted with the death of the character Hodor, the “gentle giant” who had meekly, mutely accompanied the crippled Bran Stark on his mission ever since the show’s first episode in 2011. Hodor’s faith was sealed in the outcry...

In the fifth episode of the latest season of the popular fantasy series Game of Thrones, May 2016, the grand audiences were confronted with the death of the character Hodor, the “gentle giant” who had meekly, mutely accompanied the crippled Bran Stark on his mission ever since the show’s first episode in 2011. Hodor’s faith was sealed in the outcry...

http://www.elore.fi/siltoja-uskonnon-ja-sukupuolen-risteamakohtiin-sekulaarin-paradigman-yli/ Kirja-arvostelu artikkelikokoelmasta Uskonnon ja sukupuolen risteyksiä. (Toim. Ahonen, Johanna & Vuola, Elina. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2015.)

https://thanatosjournal.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/kosonen_the_death_of_others1.pdf The visual representations of suicide have a lengthy history in Western culture, within which selfannihilation is considered a taboo form of death. In the long reach of the established traditions, the images of suicide have done more than simply illustrate the mor...

http://agricola.utu.fi/julkaisut/kirja-arvostelut/index.php?id=3647 Kirja-arvostelu artikkelikokoelmasta Kuoleman kulttuurit Suomessa. (Toim. Hakola, Outi; Kivistö, Sari & Mäkinen, Virpi. Gaudeamus Oy, 2014.)

More than half a century ago the British sociologist Geoffrey Gorer, in his article The Pornography of Death (1955), analyzed violent death to have hidden the natural death from sight in the industrializing West. Although the still prevailing assertion of the contemporary era as a death-denying era has also garnered criticism, the predominance of v...

http://tahiti.fi/02-2014/kentalta-ja-arkistosta/hahmon-matka-katsauksia-pictoplasma-2014-kulttuurifestivaaleilta/

The finnish language master's dissertation can be openly viewed in the following address: https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/handle/123456789/36546#