Heidi Kurvinen profile picture
Heidi
Kurvinen
Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS)
Collegium Researcher, History and Archaelogy
Department of Teacher Education (Turku)
PhD, Title of Docent,

Contact

Arcanuminkuja 1
20500
Turku

Areas of expertise

media history
gender history
journalism
journalists
media texts
history of feminisms
Finland
Sweden

Biography

I am a feminist media historian, and I have specialised in studying journalists and their history from the perspectives of gender and power. My doctoral thesis (2013) focused on Finnish journalists in the 1960s and the 1970s. I have also written on the early history of women journalists in Finland by using a biographical approach.

After defending my thesis at the university of Oulu, I have studied Finnish and Swedish female journalists and their perception of gender equality from the 1960s to the present day. As part of this project, I have worked as a visiting scholar at the University of Stockholm from August 2015 to March 2018. In November 2017, I began as a postdoctoral researcher at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies and worked there until September 2019. My current project is funded by the Academy of Finland (2019-2021). 

I conduct interdisciplinary research that belongs to the field of history but also uses methods from media studies, gender studies and work studies. The source material I have used in my projects consist of media texts, oral histories and archival sources.

I have a background in journalism due to which I am interested in scientific and non-scientific communication. Since April 2014, I have worked as a sub-editor in a peer reviewed journal Historiallinen Aikakauskirja (Historical Journal).

Teaching

My teaching experience consists of courses and individual lectures on the use of media texts in historical studies, the gendered history of journalism in Finland and Sweden, source criticism in media text analysis and scientific and non-scientific communication. I have taught both in Finnish and Swedish.

Research

My current project funded by the Academy of Finland focuses on the negotiations on the meanings of feminism in the Finnish mainstream media from the 1960s to 2007. By using a dialogical approach, I will try to find these negotiations in media texts and oral histories. Additionally, I will analyse the role of transnational influences in these negotiations.

The research material will be gathered systematically from selected Finnish and Finnish-Swedish media organisations and by using print media clippings from various archives. After this, the journalists and feminist activists that appear on the text material will be interviewed.

The title of the project is: The Travelling Image of Bra-Burners. Negotiating Meanings of Feminism in the Finnish Mainstream Media from the 1960s to 2007.

Publications

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