[Gandur] Stéttir og vald í finnskum málsháttum og reynslusögum: Fyrirlestur Eija Stark mánudaginn 16. apríl kl . 17

[Valdimar Tryggvi Hafstein]

Í dag, mánudaginn 16. apríl, flytur finnski þjóðfræðingurinn Eija Stark
fyrirlestur um stéttir og vald í finnskum málsháttum og reynslusögum.

Fyrirlesturinn ber yfirskriftina "Masters and servants - Intertextual
power relations in the Finnish proverbs and the personal narratives".

Eija Stark flytur fyrirlestur sinn kl. 17-18 í stofu 106 í Odda.

Fyrirlesturinn er á vegum Félags þjóðfræðinga á Íslandi.

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Eija Stark: Masters and servants - Intertextual power relations in the
Finnish proverbs and the personal narratives

Monday, 16. April 2012 at 17.00 in Oddi, room 106

Just as many European societies in 19th and early 20th century, Finland
was a society of the four estates. The estate society was a certain class
division of society where the two higher estates were nobility and clergy
and the two lower estates burghers and land-owning peasants. Each was free
men, and had specific rights and responsibilities, and the right to send
representatives to the Assembly of Finland. However, large number of
people did not belong to any of the estates. Most of the people, about 70
percent of the population, were outside the estates. Those who did not
belong to any of the estates were cottagers and tenants of farms owned by
the land-owning peasants, farm-servants, rural craftsmen and the rising
number of industrial workers. The estates and the outsiders of the estates
had a cultural hierarchy among one another: upper classes knew they were
higher in social order than cottagers and landless day-workers, and those
were well aware that the clergy and burghers were ahead of them. Social
and economic conditions have had a great impact on folklore and popular
thought. In my presentation I will give an example of the intertextual
analysis of the proverbs and the personal narratives about the concept of
master (?herra?). The presentation introduces vernacular - those outside
the estates? - views and perspectives on the upper classes. The useful
concept is the culture of contestation introduced by Luigi
Lombardi-Satriani in 1974. The term contestation refers ?to adduce
opposing testimony? towards the hegemonic culture that was defined by the
people in power in a given historical society.

Eija Stark has a MA and PhD in folkloristics from the University of
Helsinki. The PhD-topic was about the rural poverty in the personal
narratives and proverbs. The data consisted of 99 autobiographies and 500
proverbs that were mainly from the Finnish Literature Society's Folklore
Archive. Few autobiographies were also from the Labour Archives.

Post doc 2012-2014: current study is about the concept of class in the
interdisciplinary project called "Exploring Social Boundaries from
Below: Class, Ideology and Writing Practices in 19th Century Finland".
The project is funded by the Academy of Finland and it is led by a docent
Anna Kuismin, literary scholar.