Programme
Narrativising Borders, Mobilities and Cultural Encounters: 2025 BOMOCULT Conference
2-3 October 2025
University of Eastern Finland, Agora Building, Joensuu campus, Yliopistokatu 4, 80100 Joensuu
Program
Thursday 2 October 2025
Room AT100, Agora Building
10.00-10.15 Conference Opening
Chair: Jopi Nyman (School of Humanities, UEF), James W. Scott (Karelian Institute, UEF)
10.15-12.00 Plenary session
Chair: James W. Scott (Karelian Institute, UEF), Jopi Nyman (School of Humanities, UEF)
Keynote 1
Professor Sanjay Chaturvedi (South Asian University, India): Interrogating ‘Planetary Boundaries’ of the Anthropocene: Borderlands, Justice, and Re-Ordering
Keynote 2
Professor Elisabeth Bekers (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium): Unexplored Literary Territory: Brussels Through the Eyes of Outsiders
12.00-13.00 Lunch Break
13.00-15.00 Panel 1a
Room AG100, Agora Building
Chair: Timo Kallinen (School of Theology, UEF)
Ari Räisänen (School of Humanities, UEF): Embodied Mobilities and Transcultural Memory in Atticus Lish’s Preparation for the Next Life
Eila Rantonen (Literature Studies, University of Turku): Memories of Industrial Work in Sweden-Finnish Literature
Olga Davydova-Minguet, Olga Filippova, Tetiana Nahirniak (Karelian Institute, UEF): “Immigrating into History”: Immigrant Encounters with Finnish WWII Memory
Alena Fedotova (ExpREES, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki): True Crime as a Death Penalty’s Cross-Narrative in Modern Russia
Panel 1b: Non-Western Migration Regimes in a Global Perspective, MARS
Room AG104, Agora Building
Chair: Joni Virkkunen (Karelian Institute, UEF)
Tiina Sotkasiira (Department of Social Sciences, UEF): The Securitisation of Transnational Influences of Media in the Russian-Speaking Diaspora
Aija Lulle (Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, UEF): Caring for Democracy in Geopolitical Uncertainty
Minna Piipponen (Karelian Institute, UEF): International Migration and Policy Responses in Kazakhstan
Saara Koikkalainen (Karelian Institute, UEF): Europeans in Cairo – a Research Plan
15.00-15.15 Coffee
Room AG101, Agora Building
15.15-17.15 Panel 2a
Chair: Tiina Sotkasiira (Department of Social Sciences, UEF)
Teele Jänes (Department of Social Sciences, UEF): Protectors of State and Protectors of People. A Practitioner’s View into the Baltic Asylum Systems
Ville R. Hartonen (School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education, UEF): The Threshold: What is Most Important in Life for Asylum Seekers
Marco Ghisetti (Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland, Visiting Researcher, Arctic Centre): The American Frontier Marches Northward: Greenland’s Annexation in U.S. Geopolitical Thought and Narrative
Panel 2b: Borders and Border Crossings in Art and Activism I
Room AG102, Agora Building
Chair: Pauliina Lukinmaa (School of Humanities, UEF)
Inga Kontkanen (School of Humanities, UEF): Translocal Poetics: Galina Rymbu and the School of Experimental Writing
Vassa Yakymets (School of Humanities, UEF): Queering the Vyshyvanka for Ukrainian Unity: Queer Activism during the Russo-Ukrainian War
Daniil Zhaivoronok (Tampere University): Cyberfeminism as a Negotiation Space between Russia and the West, and between Politics and Art
Erja Vottonen, Marja Sorvari (School of Humanities, UEF): Images of Russia and Russianness in Translation: The Reception of Oksana Vasyakina’s Finnish Translations
17.15-17.30 Technical break
17.30-19.00 Panel 3a
Room AG101, Agora Building
Chair: Simo Mikkonen (School of Humanities, UEF)
Ilaria Sicari (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; Leiden University College): Topography of Cultural Cold War: Transnational Nodes, Routes and Networks of Tamizdat
Sofia Schulgin (School of Humanities, UEF): “Readers from Kuokkala to Cairo” The Transnational Impact of the Magazine Žurnal Sodružestva (1933–1938)
Juho Suokas, Erja Vottonen, Elina Kainulainen, Helka Riionheimo, Esa Penttilä (School of Humanities, ReTra research group, UEF): Multilingualism in English-Dominated Scientific Research
Panel 3b: Borders and Border Crossings in Art and Activism II
Room AG102, Agora Building
Chair: Marja Sorvari (School of Humanities, UEF)
Pauliina Lukinmaa (School of Humanities, UEF): Assemblages of Art and Identity in Transit: The Novye Khudozhniki and Their Reception in Finland
Sini Siitonen (School of Humanities, UEF): The Finnish Reception of Maxim Gorky’s Literary Works, 1900-1939
Kati Launis, Marja Sorvari (School of Humanities, UEF): Cultural Border-Crossings: Texts and Women on the Move in the Literary Field of Finland, Russia, and the Soviet Union
19.00-20.30 BOMOCULT Networking Event, Agora Café (pre-registration necessary)
Friday 3 October 2025
10.00-11.30 Panel 4a
Room AG100, Agora Building
Chair: James W. Scott (Karelian Institute, UEF)
Pasi Tuunainen (Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, UEF): The 1922 Soviet-Finnish Border Peace Agreement and its Impact on Finnish Defense Preparations and Operations at the beginning of the Winter War (1939-1940)
James W. Scott (Karelian Institute, UEF): Wicked Cities, Guilty Cities. Narrating the Urban “Other” as Socio-Political Bordering
Mairéad Lordan (Karelian Institute, UEF): Shifting Identities in Northern Ireland and the Narrativisation of the Irish Border
Panel 4b: Mobilities and Migrations
Room AG109, Agora Building
Chair: Sanna Mustasaari (School of Law, UEF)
Tuomo Alhojärvi (School of Humanities, UEF): Postdystopian Care: Climate Mobilities, Anticipatory Geomedia and Ecosocial Infrastructuring
Anna-Leena Toivanen (School of Humanities, UEF): Narrativising Postcolonial Aviation: Aeromobile Chronotopes in Francophone African Fiction
Rodwell Makombe (Department of English, North-West University, South-Africa; Humboldt Fellow, University of Bonn): Migrant Masculinities in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names and Tendai Huchu’s The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician
11.30-12.30 Lunch Break
12.30-14.00 Panel 5a
Room AG101, Agora Building
Chair: Jopi Nyman (School of Humanities, UEF)
Olga Cielemecka, Jussi Laine (Karelian Institute, UEF): Narrating Insecurity: Border Fences as Symbolic Politics
Anupam Kamal Sen (School of Humanities, UEF): Encountering Living Borders in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune
Priyanka Muhury (School of Humanities, UEF): Border Crossings and Borderscapes: Reframing Diasporic Belonging in Lahiri’s The Namesake
Panel 5b
Room AG109, Agora Building
Chair: Joni Virkkunen (Karelian Institute, UEF)
Virpi Kaisto (Karelian Institute, UEF): How to Explore Border Narratives through Visual Analysis: The Case of the Finnish–Russian Border
Anni-Maria Peltola (School of Theology, UEF): Bible References in Patriarch Kirill’s Statements During the Russo-Ukrainian War
Chao Jiang (Karelian Institute, UEF): Surplus Value, Synergetic Space, and Spatial Organization in Cross-border Cooperation
14.00-14.30 Coffee
14.30-16.00 Panel 6: Transnational Death in Discussions and Practices
Room AG109, Agora Building
Chair: Olga Davydova-Minguet (Karelian Institute, UEF)
Teemu Oivo (Karelian Institute, UEF): Finnish-Russian Transnationals and Dividing Ideoscapes of Death
Pirjo Pöllänen, Olga Davydova-Minguet (Karelian Institute, UEF): Discussing Religiosity and Non-Religiosity in Russian Speakers’ Deaths in Finland
Ismo Björn, Pirjo Pöllänen (Karelian Institute, UEF): The Gendered Everyday Care of (Transnational) Cemeteries in Rural Border Region North Karelia
16.00-16.15 Closing Words
