Harvard University

Department Member, Center for European Studies

Visiting Fellow

About

I am interested in the history of political concepts, Modern European political philosophy, gender and sexuality, and philosophy of culture.

I currently lead a 3-year Academy of Finland research project (2010-12) on the "Politics of Virility in Modern Political Thought". The project examines how virile sexuality and active sexual desire are conceptually connected to political participation and political rights in modern political thought around and after 1800. I examine the meaning of the ‘politics of virility’ in three steps. Firstly, I ask how and why sexual virility was connected to political concepts and ideas in the political thought of this crucial period of modernity, and what part class and race play in this process. Secondly, I examine how virility was connected to the “politics of friendship”; the privileging of the idea of fraternity and friendship or love between men in political thought. Thirdly, I analyze what consequences these historical connections that now are invisible in the concepts we use (‘citizen’, ‘state’) have had for thinking about politics and political participation in modern political thought. I will answer these questions by doing careful conceptual analysis of texts by key philosophers of the time (Hegel, Fichte, Kant, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft), by lesser known figures (Adam Müller, Robert Filmer) and historical documents such as political pamphlets, biographies and educational and pornographic literature.

In 2010-12 I am a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University at the Center for European Studies. In Finland, I'm affiliated with the Research Centre of Excellence on Political Thought and Conceptual Change at the University of Helsinki.

I have co-edited two books, "Visions of Value and Truth: Understanding philosophy and literature" (Acta Philosophica Fennica, 2006, with Floora Ruokonen) and "Feministinen filosofia" [Feminist philosophy] (Gaudeamus, 2005, with Johanna Oksala), and have published articles on the relation of feminism and the history of philosophy, G.W.F. Hegel’s thought, and philosophy of literature and film. I've taught philosophy and gender studies in Finland, the USA and Italy, as well as thesis writing to visual artists and designers in Finland. I am currently finishing a monograph on love in Hegel’s philosophy and working on a new monograph titled "The Politics of Virility".

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