Niko Heikkilä
 PhD


njheik@utu.fi

Arcanuminkuja 1

Turku


ORCID identifierhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-0499-2775





Areas of expertise
U.S. history; social movements; activism; social conflict; social change; cultural meanings; repression

Biography

I currently work as a postdoctoral researcher at the JMC in the Research Council of Finland-funded “Reproduction Wars: Imaginaries and Mobilizations in the U.S.-Mexico Transborder Region” (REPRO) project. In the project, I examine the policing of women’s reproduction in Texas, focusing on how anti-abortion organizations mobilize people to surveil abortion seekers and providers. My doctoral dissertation examined the Klan, the Black Panther Party, and the FBI's counterintelligence from 1964 to 1971. I have previously also worked as a research assistant at the John Morton Center for North American Studies in an interdisciplinary research project, "U.S. Election Year 2016," during Spring 2016. 

I was a coeditor of the edited collection on the methods of cultural history Kulttuurihistorian tutkimus: Lähteistä menetelmiin ja tulkintaan (2022).  

Together with Maarit Leskelä-Kärki and Marika Ahonen, I was also a coeditor of the book Toivon ja raivon vuosi 1968 (2019). I have published articles in journals such as the European Journal of American Studies and American Studies in Scandinavia.

In 2019-2020, I was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Fulbright visiting researcher in the department of American Studies.  



Research

My research has focused on social movements in the U.S., with a particular focus on both reactionary and revolutionary mobilizations of the 1960s and 1970s. I am also interested in issues of social control and repression, the dynamics of social change and reaction, and the interaction between politics and (popular) culture.



Teaching

In 2018–2019, I was a co-teacher of an MA-level theme seminar about popular culture.

In Fall 2017, I taught the course "Social Movements and Culture during the 20th Century" for undergraduate students. 

I was a teaching assistant in an undergraduate course, "2016 U.S. Presidential Election," at the Faculty of Social Sciences in the fall of 2016.



Publications


Last updated on 2024-17-01 at 09:25