Heli Rantala
PhD, Docent
hemara@utu.fi Arcanuminkuja 1 Turku |
history; cultural history; nineteenth-century studies; Romantic era; history of concepts; intellectual history; press history; text reuse; travel writing; diaries; literary history; academic communities and university history; mobility studies (mobility of people and ideas)
I work as a researcher in the Department of Cultural History specializing in nineteenth-century cultural and intellectual history, press history and the history of learned communities. I have published also on the history of travel writing and on book history, among other topics.
I conducted my MA and PhD studies at the University of Turku, where I studied History, Philosophy and some Political Science as well. I gained my doctoral degree in 2013 in Cultural History at the University of Turku. In my doctoral dissertation, I studied the conceptual dimension of the Finnish nineteenth-century cultural discourse by investigating the entangled meanings of culture, Bildung and civilisation in the writings of Johan Vilhelm Snellman (1806–1881), a Swedish-speaking philosopher, journalist and academic.
During my academic career, I have had an opportunity to work in the field of doctoral training as a co-ordinator of several doctoral programmes. In addition to my academic work, I am active in some scholarly societies. I am especially interested in the fields of science communication, non-fiction writing and the dialogue between arts and sciences.
Currently (2024-) I'm occupied with my own project that explores the history of Finnish academic communities from the perspective of failures, death and oblivion. In 2020-2024 I have been leading the project Mobility of Words and Places of Knowledge: Learned Communities in Early Nineteenth-Century Finland (Kone Foundation).
I have had an opportunity to work in several research projects led by Professor Hannu Salmi, first in Travelling Notions of Culture: Itineraries of Bildung and Civilisation in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe and later in Computational History and the Transformation of Public Discourse in Finland, 1640–1910, and in Viral Culture in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe. In these projects, I have studied the spatial dimension of civilisation (for example in Nordic travelogues), text re-use in Finnish newspapers and the viral nature of revolution in early nineteenth-century Europe.
During 2020-2023, I have been active in the research project Information Flows across the Baltic Sea: Swedish-language press as a cultural mediator, 1771-1918 led by Prof. Salmi. In 2023-2024 I have also worked in the research project Fauna et Flora Fennica led by Otto Latva.
I have worked as a teacher and a supervisor in the interdisciplinary study programme Baltic Sea Region Studies (UTU) for several years. In this programme, I have taught courses on the themes of identity, nationalism, transnationalism and cultural transfer. I have also been involved in various teaching activities at my home department including a MA level seminar in cultural history.
- Fast News, Slow Connections: News travelling over the Baltic Sea during the early nineteenth century (2023) Information Flows across the Baltic Sea. Towards a Computational Approach to Media History Rantala Heli
(A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book) - Fauna et Flora Fennica -hanke Suomen lajistoa kartoittamassa (2023)
- Auraica: Scripta A Societate Porthan Edita
(B1 Non-refereed article in a scientific journal) - Goethestä Maradonaan - vierailulla Napolissa (2023)
- Kulttuurihistoria nyt!
(E1 Popularised article) - Historiantutkijat koronan keskellä. Kokemuksia kansainvälisestä tutkimushankkeesta (2023)
- Kulttuurihistoria nyt!
(D1 Article in a professional journal) - Historia nyt! THY 100 vuotta - Hetkiä Turun historiassa 100 vuoden ajalta (2023) Skurnik Johanna, Viljamaa Noora, Rantala Heli
(E3 Editorial work for a popularised compilation book ) - Information Flows across the Baltic Sea: Towards a Computional Approach to Media History (2023) Lundell Patrik, Salmi Hannu, Edoff Erik, Marjanen Jani, Paju Petri, Rantala Heli
(C2 Editorial work for a scientific compilation book) - On Prophets and Poets: Finnish-Swedish literary connections in the nineteenth-century press (2023) Information Flows across the Baltic Sea. Towards a Computational Approach to Media History Rantala Heli
(A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book) - Shared and Parallel Histories of Swedish-language Newspapers: An introduction (2023) Information Flows across the Baltic Sea: Towards a Computional Approach to Media History Salmi Hannu, Lundell Patrik, Edoff Erik, Marjanen Jani, Paju Petri, Rantala Heli
(A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book) - Text reuse in the Swedish-language press, 1645-1918 (2. ed.) (2023) Vesanto Aleksi, Paju Petri, Rantala Heli, Edoff Erik, Lundell Patrik, Marjanen Jani, Salmi Hannu
(I2 ICT program or software application ) - Towards an Ontology and Epistemology of Text Reuse: Cycles of Information Flows in Finnish Newspapers and Journals, 1771–1920 (2023) Digitised Newspapers – A New Eldorado for Historians?: Reflections on Tools, Methods and Epistemology Paju Petri, Rantala Heli, Salmi Hannu
(A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book) - Kansainvälisyyden ja kulttuurin nimissä. Friedrich Anton Meyer 1800-luvun alun kirjakulttuurin toimijana (2022)
- Historiallinen Aikakauskirja
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - ‘Kultur’ / ‘Bildung’ vs. ‘Civilisation’: A Close Look at one Conceptual Asymmetry in the Early Nineteenth-Century Finnish Discourse (2022) Beyond ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’: Asymmetrical Concepts in European Discourse. Rantala Heli
(B2 Non-refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book) - Materian, tiedon ja ihmisten matkassa : näkökulmia kirjallisen kulttuurin liikkeen tutkimukseen : teemanumeron pääkirjoitus (2022)
- Ennen ja Nyt : Historian Tietosanomat
(B1 Non-refereed article in a scientific journal) - Textual Migration Across the Baltic Sea: Creating a Database of Text Reuse Between Finland and Sweden (2022)
- CEUR Workshop Proceedings
(A4 Refereed article in a conference publication ) - The Travelling of News in 1848: The February Revolution, European News Flows, and the Finnish Press (2022)
- Journal of European Periodical Studies
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Tidningstexter över Östersjön: En databas av delat innehåll mellan Finland och Sverige (2022)
- Historisk Tidskrift För Finland
(B1 Non-refereed article in a scientific journal) - Ylioppilaan matkassa. Opinkäyntiä ja kävelemistä 1800-luvun alussa (2022)
- Ennen ja Nyt : Historian Tietosanomat
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - 250 vuotta turkulaista toimitustyötä. Suomen sanomalehdistön alkuvaiheita. (2021)
- Kritiikki
(E1 Popularised article) - Hannu Salmea onnittelemassa (2021) Paju Petri, Oiva Mila, Saarelainen Juhana, Rantala Heli
(Other publication) - Jarl Gallén keskiajan tutkijana (2021)
- Mirator
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal)