Pitkänen Silja

Biography

I am writing a doctoral dissertation on propaganda photographs of the Soviet Union and Germany in the 1930s. I examine, how children were depicted and represented in the photographs, and how visual material involving children was used in nation-building. Working title of my dissertation is Children of the Nation. Building the Nation through Representations of Children in Soviet and German Propaganda Photographs of the 1930s.

Research Interest

My research concerns visual culture of totalitarianism, and I am also interested in the history of childhood and upbringing, as well as the themes of nationalism and nation building. I am participant in three departmental research clusters: Comparative study of political cultures, discourse and cultures, Postwar studies and Gender studies. I have also familiarised myself with the history on Finnish immigration into the United States during the first half of the 20th century, especially the labour movement and music of Finnish-Americans. The academic year of 2015–2016, I spent as a visiting postgraduate student at the Higher School of Economics Saint-Petersburg. At 2016–2017, I was a Visiting Fulbright Student Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.