The course will be organized as an intensive course (Sep. 12th-Sep 16th, 2016).

Does freedom of speech exist in Russia? What does it mean in Russian culture? Who are the agents of state control? How did Russian media operate in the climate of oligarchs? How did Russian media change after the emergence of the networked society? What is the political potential of social media in Russia?

The course provides students with conceptual frameworks for thinking through a range of key issues related to Russian (new) media: authorship, regulation, convergence and freedom of expression. The course provides a chronological survey of the history of digital media in Russia as well as a synthetic approach to media studies. The focus will be on Russian media of the past 20 years, emergence and function of new media in Russian culture. The objectives of this module are: 1) to study the theory of media and its institutions and economics in relation to the issues of media regulation; and 2) to study the practice of new media in contemporary Russia.

Vlad Strukov is Associate Professor in Digital Culture in  University of Leeds, UK.

The course is organized in cooperation with Aleksanteri Institute's Russian and East European Master's School.

The course will introduce students to various aspects of Russian digital culture. We will start with the historical perspective: how can digital communication be studied in the broad context of the history of reading and how the Russian internet, Runet, has evolved technologically, culturally and socially. We will take a closer look to specific areas of digital culture, such as, electronic libraries, social media, internet’s regulation and online popular culture. All these topics offer important insights into Russian contemporary culture and society from the point of view of digital communication while introducing theoretical and analytical frameworks that will be useful when planning individual theses and further studies.

The course consists of 20 hrs lectures and seminar work as well as individual assignments prepared outside the class work. The students are expected to attend lectures, read 1-2 articles before each lecture and participate in class discussion. There will be 2 mini-assignments during the course, which are presented and discussed in the last class. In addition, the students will write a final paper (7-10 pages) on a selected topic related to the course theme. The return date of the final papers is one month after the last lecture.

The course is organized in cooperation with Aleksanteri Institute's Russian and East European Master's School.

This course is offered as an investigative art/research workshop where students explore questions related to sexual and gender politics in Finnish and Russian societies. The course consists of pre-readings, short lectures, group discussions and joint practical art-making workshops. The students learn to make short videos and to edit them. The students do not have to have previous experience of making videos or practicing art.

The workshop is intended to function as a space of cross-cultural and cross-sectoral knowledge production. We will critically explore a variety of borders that relate to the politics of gender and sexuality, e.g. the East-West divide or the boundary between academic research and artistic practice. We seek to explore the limits of established and conventionalized ways of knowledge production within academia, to recognize forms of sexual nationalism as well as to identify new kinds of solutions to problems related to the politics of gender & sexuality both in Finland and in Russia. 

The point of departure of the workshop is the idea that while questions related to sexual and gender politics are differently structured in Finnish and Russian societies, much is also shared. The workshop will explore the following types of questions: 

(1)   What kinds of meanings do gender and sexuality acquire in different cultural-political contexts? How are these meanings contested and questioned in Finland and in Russia?

(2)   How do politics of gender and sexuality articulate conceptions of social justice and equality in Finnish and Russian societies? What kind of practices of power, marginalization and exclusion are associated with these conceptions, and how can they be countered?

(3)   What kinds of cultural translations does the joint exploration of sexuality and gender bring to the fore? How can these acts of translation inform us about the cultural articulations concerning politics of gender and sexuality in Finland and Russia?

(4)   What kind of cultural and social ‘infrastructure’ is there in the past and present of the Russian and Finnish societies that would enable identifying solutions to the social issues related to politics of gender and sexuality?

Work load

Total hours 135 hrs (contact teaching 35 hrs, independent work 100 hrs) 

• Before the workshop: a set of pre-readings and a reflective learning diary (app. 2000 words) 
• Active attendance at the workshop sessions and practical art-making 
• After the workshop: a finalized artwork and/or an essay (app. 3000 words)

The course addresses Russia’s foreign policy from Gorbachev’s New Thinking until 2016. Students will learn about key events, phenomena, actors, and classifications of foreign policy schools, and other concepts to interpret them. The course will also encourage students to pay attention to interaction between the domestic and foreign policy in the Russian context.

In order to pass the course, students should actively take part in the lectures, study the required materials for each lecture and prepare a public group presentation  (3 ECTS). In order to get 5 ECTS, students will write an essay on Russia’s foreign policy – the title to be specified and agreed on with the teacher -  in addition to the above mentioned requirements.

Please enroll in NettiOpsu by 17 October. Enrolment starts 19 September. A maximum of 50 students will be accepted to the course (RES and Politics students will be given priority, otherwise on the basis of first come, first served). The first lecture will take place 27 October and the last one 8 December. You cannot take this course unless you are able to come to our last meeting 8 December when a conference with your presentations will be organized.

Please enroll in NettiOpsu by 10 October. Enrolment starts 19 September.  A maximum of 50 students will be accepted to the course (RES and Politics students will be given priority, otherwise on the basis of first come, first served). The first lecture will take place 27 October and the last one  8 December. You cannot take this course unless you are able to come to our last meeting 8  December  when a conference with your presentations will be organized.

This course is offered as an art/research workshop where students explore questions related to gender politics of masculinities in Finnish and Russian societies. The course consists of pre-readings, short lectures, discussions and independent work on men studies, and Finnish and Russian case studies.

The course/workshop offers a forum for cross-cultural and cross-sectoral knowledge production in the field of men studies. Of special interest will be the image making, both in visual arts and verbal contexts. Both the speakers and the pre-readings will critically focus on the politics of gender and masculinity, both in Finland and in Russia. By utilizing the cooperation of academic research and artistic practice (especially film) we seek to recognize problems related to gender and masculinities in the Finnish and Russian contexts.

The point of departure of the workshop is the idea that while questions related to sexual and gender politics are differently structured in Finnish and Russian societies, much is also shared. The workshop will explore masculinities in the following contexts:

(1)   Masculinities and the representations of fatherhood in Finnish and Russian film and research

(2)   Affective history of war and peace

(3)   Politics of sexuality and image making and the role of media in de/re-constructing of masculinities

Teachers/Speakers (2. and 3. Dec. 2016)

Research: E.g. Ville Kivimäki (History, UTA), Jiri Nieminen (Politics, gender studies UTA), Elena Mescherkina (Sociology, Moscow Russia), Aleksandrina Vanke (Culture and History, Moscow, Russia), Tatjana Rjabova (History, gender studies Ivanovo, Russia), Cai Weaver (Politics, gender studies, Helsinki); Arja Rosenholm (Russian language and culture UTA), Anni Kangas (Politics, UTA)

Arts: E.g. Elena Pogrebizhskaya (Moscow); Nina Rokosa; Juhani Haukka; Masha Godovannya (St.Petersburg)

Kurssilla käydään läpi venäläisen elokuvan historia tsaarinajalta tähän päivään. Opiskelijat tutustuvat venäläisen elokuvan tärkeimpiin tekijöihin ja teoksiin sekä venäläisen  elokuvatuotannon taiteellisiin, teknisiin ja poliittisiin olosuhteisiin eri vuosikymmeninä. Kurssi koostuu luennoista ja niihin liittyvistä elokuvakatseluista

Opettaja on FT Lauri Piispa.

Luentojen teemat:
Johdanto (ei elokuvanäytöstä)
Tsaarinajan elokuva ja vallankumous
Montaasielokuvan jättiläiset
20-luvun ilmiöitä
Elokuva Stalinin kaudella
Suojasään ihmiskasvoinen elokuva
Neuvostoelokuvan viimeiset vuodet
Perestroikan ja nyky-Venäjän elokuva

The course offers students basic knowledge of post-communist transformation of Russian media and journalism, including new alternative media, and discusses their conflicting roles in contemporary Russia within a global context, including BRICS. The lectures are mainly based on recent international projects funded by Academy of Finland.

Teachers: Emeritus Professor Kaarle Nordenstreng (2h), Visiting Professor Elena Vartanova, Moscow State University (4h), Docent Svetlana Pasti (6h), Researcher Dmitry Yagodin (6h), and Researcher Saara Ratilainen (2h)

In NettiOpsu by 13 February. Max 30 students.

Lectures:

Mon-13-Feb Svetlana Pasti and Kaarle Nordenstreng: Introduction to the course and to Russian media and journalism

Tue-14-Feb Elena Vartanova. Russian media system in the globalized context
Wed-15-Feb Elena Vartanova. Russian media system in the globalized context

Tue-21-Feb Dmitry Yagodin:New media forms and internet governance debate in Russia

Wed-22-Feb Dmitry Yagodin: Russian media coverage of international issues and conflicts

Thu-23-Feb Dmitry Yagodin: Russian soft power and global public diplomacy efforts

Tue-28-Feb Svetlana Pasti: Journalism profession in Russia and BRICS 

Wed-1-Mar Svetlana Pasti:  Gender and journalism in Russia and BRICS     

Thu- 2-Mar Saara Ratilainen:Online lifestyle media and creative networks on the Runet

Fri-3-Mar Study group presentations and discussion moderated by Svetlana Pasti

Preliminary program:

7.3. Introduction
14.3. Russia at World’s Fairs
21.3. Friendship societies and Western Fellow Travelers
28.3. Artistic tours
4.4. Tourism to and from Russia
11.4. Lenin museum in Tampere (Lecture held at the Lenin museum, starting at 9.00)
18.4. World Youth Festivals
25.4. Sports in the Cold War
2.5. The politics of hosting Mega-events

The course is part of the Master's degree programme in Russian and European Studies (RES). RES students have priority to the course, but other students are welcome to join.