ATGENDER

Prof. Kirsi Saarikangas (Finland)

Kirsi Saarikangas is associate professor of Gender Studies at the University of Helsinki. She was the acting Professor and the Chair of the Christina Institute for Women’s Studies, University of Helsinki (Finland) 2003-2009. M.A., University of Helsinki (1987): Ph.D., University of Helsinki (1990). Adjunct professor (docent), art history and gender studies, University of Helsinki. Senior Scientist, Academy of Finland (2009-2010); Academy Research Fellow (2001-20039, Academy of Finland; Research Fellow, NOS-H (1995-1996). During the fall term 2009 she is Visiting Researcher at the Bard Graduate Center and the NYU, CSGS (Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality), USA

She was the president of the AOIFE 2006-2009 (Association of Institutions for Feminist Education and Research in Europe) and member of the Steering Committee for the Professional European Association for Women’s Studies 2007–2008 and member of the Founding Committee AtGender, Professional European Association for Women’s Studies 2008–2009.

She has directed several interdisciplinary research projects. Currently she is Director of the research project Representing and sensing nature, landscape and gender, Academy of Finland (2007-2010). She is the Director of Finnish Women’s and Gender Studies Research School (2007-2011) and the Member of the Board of the Intergender Swedish-International Research School (2008-2013). She is the Member of the Board of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Study.

She has published end edited several books and articles on the relationship of gender and space, modern home, corporeality, art historical theories and methods as well as Finnish cultural history. Her publications include books: Model Houses for Model Families. Gender, Ideology and Modern Dwelling: The Type-planned house of the 1940s in Finland (1993, Finnish Historical Society); Asunnon muodonmuutoksia. Puhtauden estetiikka ja sukupuoli modernissa arkkitehtuurissa (Finnish Literature Society, Transformations of the Dwelling. Gender and the Aesthetics of Cleanliness in Modern Architecture, Finnish Literature Society 2002), Eletyt tilat ja sukupuoli (Lived Spaces and Gender, Finnish Literature Society 2006) and Hanna Johansson & Kirsi Saarikangas (eds.) Homes in Transformation.  Dwelling, Moving, Belonging (Finnish Literature Society 2009. Her most recent international articles are Displays of the Everyday. Relations between gender and the visibility of domestic work in the modern Finnish kitchen from the 1930s to the 1950s. Gender, Place and Culture (Vol. 13, no 2; 2006), What’s new!? Women Pioneers and the Finnish State Meet the American Kitchen. In: Ruth Oldenziel & Karin Zachman (eds). Cold War Kitchen Politics: Americanization, Technology, and European Users (The MIT Press 2009).

Her scholarly work to date has concentrated on the analysis of the everyday environment, the genealogy of modern home from the late 19th century to the late 20th century as well as the interdisciplinary analysis of the relations between gender and built environment. Her current research interests focus on the questions of home, nature and gender in the lived suburban spaces in the 1950s and 1960s.

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