Archive for August, 2007

translating discourse

Wednesday, 29 August 2007 at 1:05 pm · Filed under discourse, finland

I’ve just discovered a new possible translation of the concept of ‘discourse’ into Finnish, namely ‘arvorypäs‘. This implies the concentration of different discursive elements and values into one. It also implies limits, just like the concept of discourse itself entails them.

Perhaps this way the whole study of discourses becomes more easy to grasp for a wider audience. And the misconception of discourse as speech, mere parole, can be avoided.

My course on Ideology and Discourse Analysis at the University of Helsinki starts on Monday. Thankfully, it is in English. It may take a while still before I’ve got my and other people’s heads around discourse theory in Finnish – talking with colleagues and students in Finnish about these things helps, though.

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in helsinki, at the collegium

Monday, 6 August 2007 at 2:06 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

i spent my youth in helsinki. my helsinki was that of 1990s. now, after ten years of living mainly abroad, i’m back. and of course there are a lot of culture shocks and all that kind of stuff involved. more of them in the personal blog http://palemics.wordpress.com which is designed for those who know me (whatever that means). here I should add my new institutional affiliation.

Our “Nations and their others: Finns and Hungarians since 1900″ Academy of Finland funded project has three sites. Collegium Budapest, University of Jyväskylä, and my current base Collegium Helsinki at the University of Helsinki.

For me this is a great chance to try to integrate into the Finnish academia – after all I did all my university studies abroad, while remaining in the international and interdisciplinary environment I am used to having around.

thankfully, it’s been not only me but also the city of helsinki itself has changed, become more international and multicultural over the years i have been away. many of my colleagues and friends are from abroad or have spent long periods abroad too. being used to the foreigner’s communities and idenfications (such as that of ulkosuomalainen, “outside finn”, that became one of my main points of identification five years ago), and i find it really important in trying to settle. let’s see how it’ll go…

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