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Kontturi’s chapter focuses on two Swedish physicians reporting from London and Caribbean Swedish colony St. Barthélemy to Swedish medical college in 1798. The emphasis is on their participation in the global networks of colonial medicine, shaping and sharing medical information from colonies outside of Europe. Their reports show how they promoted the hybridisation of different medical cultures with their distinctly open-minded curiosity towards new information, which was in line with the old Linnaean tradition of scientific travelling. The chapter also draws attention to their impact on how global diseases such as syphilis and smallpox were managed and treated in their own sphere of influence. peerReviewed

Recently within media research, there has been an intensified discussion on the notion of ritual and the relationship between ritual and the mass media. This article offers a comparative historical perspective to this debate. We look at events that have been publicly signalled as 'national tragedies' within movie newsreels and public broadcaster's news from the 1950s to the 2000s, to see how media reporting of mourning rituals has changed. We ask how have the mourning rituals reported in the media been involved in 'joining us together' and what kind of 'sacred centres of society' have been constructed through the reporting of mourning rituals? Our study suggests that the media constructs mourning rituals, whether religious, civic or national, as inclusive and affirmative, constituting the church and the state as well as itself as key centres of society. Recently within media research, there has been an intensified discussion on the notion of ritual and the relationship between ritual and the mass media. This article offers a comparative historical perspective to this debate. We look at events that have been publicly signalled as 'national tragedies' within movie newsreels and public broadcaster's news from the 1950s to the 2000s, to see how media reporting of mourning rituals has changed. We ask how have the mourning rituals reported in the media been involved in 'joining us together' and what kind of 'sacred centres of society' have been constructed through the reporting of mourning rituals? Our study suggests that the media constructs mourning rituals, whether religious, civic or national, as inclusive and affirmative, constituting the church and the state as well as itself as key centres of society. Recently within media research, there has been an intensified discussion on the notion of ritual and the relationship between ritual and the mass media. This article offers a comparative historical perspective to this debate. We look at events that have been publicly signalled as 'national tragedies' within movie newsreels and public broadcaster's news from the 1950s to the 2000s, to see how media reporting of mourning rituals has changed. We ask how have the mourning rituals reported in the media been involved in 'joining us together' and what kind of 'sacred centres of society' have been constructed through the reporting of mourning rituals? Our study suggests that the media constructs mourning rituals, whether religious, civic or national, as inclusive and affirmative, constituting the church and the state as well as itself as key centres of society.

FM Miia Kuhan Suomen historian väitöskirja Pyhäpäivien vietto varhaismodernin ajan Savossa (vuoteen 1710) tarkastettiin 29.4.2016 Jyväskylän yliopistossa. Vastaväittäjänä toimi dosentti Raisa Maria Toivo Tampereen yliopistosta ja kustoksena professori Kustaa H. J. Vilkuna Jyväskylän yliopistosta.

Elokuvissa ja erityisesti angloamerikkalaisissa elokuvissa kuvataan itsemurhaa usein. Niiden representaatiot heijastelevat kulttuurisia käsityksiä itsemurhasta, mutta myös itsenäisesti vaikuttavat käsitysten syntymiseen. Tässä artikkelissa tarkastelen Ari Asterin folk-kauhugenreä edustavaa elokuvaa Midsommar – loputon yö (2019). Elokuvassa sisarensa tekemää murha-itsemurhaa sureva Dani matkustaa Yhdysvalloista Ruotsiin fiktiiviseen Hårga-kommuuniin poikaystävänsä ja tämän ystävien kanssa. Hårgalainen juhannusrituaali paljastaa eroja amerikkalaisen ja hårgalaisen kulttuurin välillä muun muassa kuolemasuhteeseen, tunteiden ilmaisuun ja perheeseen liittyen.Keskityn artikkelissa yhtäältä itsemurhaan tai omaehtoiseen kuolemaan tabuluonteisena kuolemana, johon liittyvää samanaikaisen näkymättömyyden ja hypernäkyvyyden dynamiikkaa elokuva mielenkiintoisella tavalla käsittelee. Midsommarin tarinankaaressa itsemurha näyttäytyy vaiettuna traumana ja oikeuttamattomana surun lähteenä, jonka käsittelyä Danin lähipiiri ei tue. Samalla elokuva heijastelee itsemurhan välineellistymistä ja pornoistumista angloamerikkalaisessa viihteessä.Toisaalta keskityn omaehtoisen kuoleman määrittelyn kysymyksiin tarkastelemalla elokuvan esittämää kulttuurista törmäyspistettä, jossa vastakkain asettuvat kahdenlaisten selitysmallien alle asettuvat itsemurhat. Näitä kuolemia voidaan määritellä egoistiseksi ja altruistiseksi viitaten durkheimilaiseen typologiaan, jossa itsemurha esiintyy aina suhteessa yhteiskuntaan. Toisaalta Midsommarin tarinamaailmassa itsemurhat redusoituvat ”diagnostisiksi” ja ”kultistisiksi” marginalisoiduiksi kuolemiksi ja siten heijastelevat normatiivisen biovallan selitysmallien valtaa itsemurhan määrittelyn kysymyksiin.Avainsanat: tabu, kuolema, itsemurha, folk-kauhu, biovaltaRitual Death and Family Tragedy: On Suicide’s Definition and Taboo in Folk Horror Film MidsommarFilms, especially Anglo-American ones, frequently depict suicide. Their representations reflect cultural understandings of suicide, but also independently influence how self-willed death is perceived. In this article I study how suicide is depicted in Ari Aster’s folk horror film Midsommar (2019). In the film, the protagonist Dani, who is mourning her sister’s murder-suicide, travels from the US to a Swedish commune, Hårga, with her boyfriend and his friends. The Hårgan midsummer ritual reveals differences in the two cultures’ relationships to death, emotional expression, and family.One the one hand, I focus on the way the film reflects suicide’s nature as a taboo, as something simultaneously hidden and hypervisible. In the diegesis, suicide appears as a silenced trauma, as a source of disenfranchised grief, and as a death the protagonist is not allowed to mourn. Simultaneously the film reflects suicide’s instrumentalization and pornification in Anglo-American entertainment.On the other hand, I focus on questions related to the definition of suicide or self-willed death. The film depicts conflicts between two cultures, where different explanation models of self-willed death are juxtaposed with one another. On display are two types of suicides that can be referred to as “egoistic” and “altruistic” by reference to Durkheim’s typology, which takes into account suicide’s relationship to society. Yet in Midsommar’s diegesis, these deaths appear as psychologized and culturally marginalized “diagnostic” and “cultist” suicides, and thus reflect the power of normative biopower over how self-willed death is understood and made sense of in the west.Keywords: taboo, death, suicide, folk-horror, biopower