Professor Taina Syrjämaa, Ph.D
E-mail: taina.syrjamaa[at]utu.fi
Tel.: +358 (0)2 333 5245
My current research interests are mainly linked to the study of foreignness, exhibitions, urban history, consumer culture and historical spatiality.
Currently, I am working as a collegium researcher at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS), where I am concentrating on research that is focused on constructing and defining foreignness vs. Finnishness. In the first instance, the study focuses on the national exhibition held in Helsinki in 1876 and will subsequently continue as an analysis of other commercially oriented fairs between the 1870s and 1930s.
The key concept of this research — foreignness — has been and continues to be analysed in the Scandinavian network "Encountering Foreignness – Nordic Perspectives Since the Eighteenth Century" (Enfore), which I direct. The study is also linked to the "Empowerment and Disempowerment in Finland, 1550-1980" project, which is financed by the Academy of Finland. Between 2005-2008 I examined various aspects of power in the CLIOHRES.net 6th framework network of excellence and in its subgroup "Power and Culture".
My current research draws on the theoretical and methodological issues dealt with in my earlier research, whilst redirecting them to new approaches. I have published three monographs and one co-written with a research group. My most recent work dealt with the popular belief in progress as manifested and constructed in the world exhibitions (Edistyksen luvattu maailma. Edistysusko maailmannäyttelyissä 1851–1915. (SKS 2007)).
Prior to this work I have mainly concentrated on Italian history and have been an adjunct professor in Italian history since 1998 in the department of General History. In 2006 I published "Constructing Unity, Living in Diversity. A Roman Decade" (Finnish Academy of Science and Letters), which represents a study on urban history that seeks to understand the city as a polyphonic and kaleidoscopic lived space.
My doctoral dissertation (1997) focused on the formation of Italian tourism policy and administration in the interwar period, especially in regard to tourist promotion abroad.