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Sie sind hier: FRIAS School of History Fellows Prof. Dr. Pasi Ihalainen

Prof. Dr. Pasi Ihalainen

Universität Jyväskylä, FI
Fellow
01.01.12-31.07.12

Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies
School of History

CV

1990 University Diploma in History at University of Canterbury; 1991 Master of Arts at University of Jyväskylä; 1995 Licentiate of Philosophy (General History) at University of Jyväskylä; 1999 PhD in General History at University of Jyväskylä; since 2002 Adjunct Professor of General History at University of Jyväskylä; 2006-2011 temporary Professor at the University of Jyväskylä; 2010 Visiting Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Uppsala; since 2012 Full Professor of General History, especially Comparative European History, University of Jyväskylä


PUBLICATIONS (10 selected)

  • The Discourse on Political Pluralism in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Conceptual Study with Special Reference to Terminology of Religious Origin, Bibliotheca Historica, vol. 36, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society 1999.
  • Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of English, Dutch and Swedish Public Churches, 1685–1772, in Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, Vol. 109, Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers 2005.
  • “Lutheran National Community in 18th Century Sweden and 21st Century Finland”, Redescriptions: Yearbook of Political Thought and Conceptual History, Vol. 9, 2005, pp. 80–112.
  • “Between historical semantics and pragmatics: Reconstructing past political thought through conceptual history”, Journal of Historical Pragmatics, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2006, pp. 115–143.
  • “The Sanctification and Democratisation of ‘the Nation’ and ‘the People’ in late Eighteenth-Century Northwestern Europe: Proposing a Comparative Conceptual History”, Contributions to the History of Concepts, Volume 3, Number 2, 2007, pp. 125–151.
  • “The Enlightenment Sermon: Towards Practical Religion and a Sacred National Community”, Preaching, Sermon and Cultural Change in the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. Joris van Eijnatten. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers 2009, pp. 219–260.
  • (with Kari Palonen), “Parliamentary sources in the comparative study of conceptual history: methodological aspects and illustrations of a research proposal”.
  • Parliaments, Estates & Representation, Vol. 29, 2009, pp. 17-34.
  • Agents of the People: Democracy and Popular Sovereignty in British and Swedish Parliamentary and Public Debates, 1734–1800, in Studies in the History of Political Thought, Vol. 4, Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers 2010, 530 pp.
  • “The Political Sermon in an Age of Party Strife, 1700-20: Contributions to the Conflict”, in The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, eds Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011.
  • Pasi Ihalainen & Anders Sundin, “Continuity and Change in the Language of Politics at the Swedish Diet, 1769–1810”, in Scandinavia in the Age of Revolution: Nordic Political Cultures, 1740-1820, eds. Pasi Ihalainen, Michael Bregnsbo, Karin Sennefelt & Patrik Winton. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited 2011, pp. 169–192.

 


FRIAS RESEARCH PROJECT

“The Spring of 1919: Alternative Visions of Future Politics in Swedish, Finnish, British and German Constitutional Debates”

How did the Swedish and Finnish political elites conceptualize politics in the aftermath of revolutions in Russia and Germany and in the time of the parliamentarization of government in both countries, the introduction of universal suffrage in Sweden and the formulation of a republican constitution in Finland? Constitutional debates in parliaments not only reflect the political values and conceptions of the time; they also shaped the values and conceptions of subsequent generations. The analysis of two simultaneous and historically, culturally and linguistically inter-connected constitutional debates in Sweden and Finland in the revolutionary period of 1917-1919 can be revealing as for the shared and peculiar features of these political cultures. The project aims at an overall interpretation of the conceptions of ‘politics’ prevalent among Swedish and Finnish political elites and reflected in the language of politics used by them in constitutional debates. Key concepts such as ‘politics’, ‘popular sovereignty’ and ‘democracy’ had evolved from despised French words to become dominant concepts between the eighteenth and twentieth century in both Swedish and Finnish. The stage of transformation in the language of politics in 1917-1919 is analyzed in a comparative and transnational context of European history with special reference to simultaneous German and British debates. These two countries provided major models and points of comparison for Swedish and Finnish parliamentarians. The comparison is expected to reveal important aspects of constitutional ideas among German and British parliamentarians as well.