Trivium - Tampere Centre for Classical, Medieval, and Early Modern Studies

02/10/2026

Ylen Kulttuuriykkösen vieraina Triviumin vpj, akatemiaprofessori Sari Kivistö ja jäsenemme Marja-Leena Hänninen keskustelemassa antiikin naisista. Linkki kommenteissa.

Sari Kivistön uusi teos Antiikin myyttiset naiset : Sankareiden uusi elämä nykykirjallisuudessa sukeltaa syvälle antiikin naisten, raivottarien ja amatsonien maailmaan. Kivistö on tutkinut ja analysoinut kahdeksan antiikin kirjallisuuden myyttistä hahmoa. Uuden tulkinnan kohteena ovat Helena, Penelope, Dido, Kassandra, Medeia, Antigone, Lysistrate ja Medusa. Ohjelmassa keskusteltiin sisaruudesta, nuorista sankarittarista, kutomisesta feminiinisenä metaforana ja tulkitaan näitä myyttien naisia feministisestä näkökulmasta. Miksi usein kauneus ja seksuaalisuus herättävät raivoa?

Sari Kivistö on todennut että nämä uudet teokset ovat poliittisesti tiedostavia ja arvioivat kriittisesti vanhojen myyttien arvoja. Millaisia kipeitäkin aiheita ne nostavat esille? Miksi halutaan käyttää näitä myyttisiä naisia eikä luoda uusia moderneja hahmoja? Millaista lisäarvoa myytti antaa uuteen teokseen? Miten Cristopher Nolanin elokuva Odysseia kuvaa tutkijoiden mielestä näitä antiikin myyttisiä naishahmoja?

Kulttuuriykkösen studiossa olivat vieraina akatemiaprofessori Sari Kivistö ja dosentti Marja-Leena Hänninen.

Linkki ohjelmaan alla.

30/09/2026

Uusi blogiteksti on julkaistu!

Historian maisteriopiskelija Kiri Schrader pohtii kirjoituksessaan keskiajan esittämistä ja keskiaikaan liitettyjä ilmiöitä A Plague Tale: Innocence -videopelin kautta. Peli seuraa kahta nuorta sisarusta heidän paetessaan inkvisitiota halki ruton tuhoamien kylien vuoden 1348 Ranskassa. Blogiteksti on muokattu Historia peleissä -kurssin esseen pohjalta. Kurssia opetti FT Jenni Lares keväällä 2025.

Hyviä lukuhetkiä!

https://research.tuni.fi/trivium-fi/blogi/keskiaikaisen-miljoon-kuvaus-a-plague-tale-innocence-videopelissa/

28/09/2026

Drinking in the ancient, medieval, and early modern world, 29-30 Oct

Alcoholic drinks played a vital role in premodern societies. People have gathered around drinks for centuries, conveying social meanings and creating cultural customs. You are what you drink—and who you drink with.

The programme is now published and registration has opened. Registration is 40 EUR and it includes the conference programme, scheduled coffee breaks and lunches. The optional dinner on Thursday costs 60 EUR.

The workshop is organized by Dr. Jenni Lares as a part of her project Sociability and Work in Early Modern Finnish Taverns, funded by the Jalmari Finne Foundation, and in cooperation with Trivium.

Thu 29 Oct

11.15 opening words

11.30 keynote by Mark Hailwood (Bristol University): Finding Modernity in the Early Modern Alehouse

12.30 lunch (Restaurant Minerva)

13.30 1st session

Jan Blonski (Polish Academy of Sciences): Drinking Together: Taverns and the Rituals of Village Sociability in the Early Modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Allan Colver (online, Northumbria University): The alchemy of music and alcohol in the alehouses and at the festivals and fairs of England 1500–1820

Kaisa Kyläkoski (University of Helsinki): The Social Mechanics of the Brorsskål: Male Comradeship and Identity in Late 18th-Century Finland

15.00 coffee

15.30 2nd session

Callum Smith (Aberystwyth University): Exploring the Eighteenth-Century ‘Six-Bottle Man’: Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Alcoholism and Decline in Visual Culture

Jaakkojuhani Peltonen (Tampere University): Drinking Practices and Moral Excess in the Roman Reception of Alexander the Great

(possible 3rd paper)

17.00 end

18.30 conference dinner (prebooking only), Restaurant Myllärit

Fri 30 Oct

10.15 3rd session

Pia Mustonen (Tampere University): “When Setian w**e glows in your golden bowl”: Drinking in Juvenal’s Satires

Matthew Cooper (University of Cambridge): Medieval English w**e taverns and the architecture of drinking

Jenni Lares (Tampere University): Early modern tavern as an experienced space

11.45 lunch

12.30 discussion on further cooperation & publication

14.00 end of workshop

17/09/2026

Ristiretket ja Bysantti, to 5.11. klo 17.30-20.00

Lyhyen ajan sisällä on ilmestynyt kolme suomalaisen kirjoittamaa ristiretkiaikaan liittyvää teosta: kaksiosainen ristiretkien historia, josta Sini Kangas käsittelee vuosia 1096–1192 ja Miikka Tamminen aikaa ristiretkeläisten suorittamasta Konstantinopolin valtauksesta vuoteen 1291, sekä Juho Wilskmanin Military History of Byzantine Rome, 1204-1261, joka käsittelee Bysantin historiaa aikakaudella, jolloin bysanttilaiset kävivät vastahyökkäykseen ja valtasivat Konstantinopolin takaisin.

Bysantin tutkimuksen seura ja Keskiajan tutkimuksen seura Glossa järjestävät yhteistyössä tutkimuskeskus Triviumin kanssa seminaarin, jossa näiden kolmen teoksen kirjoittajat käsittelevät Bysantin ja ristiretkien suhdetta.

Tilaisuus järjestetään hybridinä. Seminaariin on vapaa pääsy. Tilaisuudessa on mahdollisuus myös ostaa puhujien kirjoja.

Aika: 5.11. klo 17:30‒20:00

Paikka: TAU Pinni B4125 luentosali (Kanslerinrinne 1, 33100 Tampere)

Zoomissa:
https://tuni.zoom.us/j/64520848046?pwd=xDSUp5C4dovqDUOHzTG341oiOq5nQH.1

Meeting ID: 645 2084 8046
Passcode: 769067

Ohjelma:

17.30 Jaakkojuhani Peltonen: Tervetuliaissanat

17.45 Sini Kangas: Veljet, pelurit ja pelkurit: kreikkalaiskuvan muutos 1100-luvun ristiretkien historiankirjoituksessa

Julistaessaan ensimmäisen ristiretken 1095 paavi Urbanus II:n unelmoi katolisen ja ortodoksisen kirkon uudesta yhdistymisestä hankkeen myötä. Paavin kaavailema kristittyjen veljien yhteistyö johti kuitenkin täysin päinvastaiseen tulokseen. Katkerat ristiretkeläiset syyttivät epäonnistumisista kaksinaamaisia kreikkalaisia, jotka juonittelivat saraseenien kanssa uskovaisten päänmenoksi. 1100-luvun kuluessa kiristyvät välit loivat asenneilmapiirin, joka mahdollisti neljännen ristiretken katastrofin.

18.30 Miikka Tamminen: Harhautunut ristiretki ja Konstantinopolin ryöstö

Pahamaineinen neljäs ristiretki (1202–1204) suuntautui alkuperäisen määränpäänsä Egyptin sijaan Bysanttiin. Miksi ristiretki poikkesi reitiltään, ja miten Konstantinopolin valloitus eteni? Kristittyyn suurkaupunkiin kohdistunut hyökkäys herätti aikalaisissa niin hämmennystä, paheksuntaa kuin riemuakin. Miten kaupungin ryöstö oikeutettiin, ja miksi saaliinjaosta on säilynyt poikkeuksellisen runsaasti aikalaiskuvauksia?

19.15 Juho Wilskman: Miten Konstantinopoli vallattiin takaisin?

Se, miksi ja miten ristiretkeläiset valtasivat Konstantinopolin bysanttilaisilta 1204 on saanut paljon julkaisuja osakseen. vähemmän tuttu on tarina, miten bysanttilaiset ottivat sen takaisin. Ristiretkeläisten vallattua Bysantin pääkaupungin jatkui vastarinta maakunnissa. Siellä muodostui kolme kreikkalaiskristillistä valtakuntaa, jotka vaativat Bysantin perintöä itselleen. Nämä ovat tulleet tunnetuiksi anakronistisilla nimillä Nikaian keisarikunta, Trapezuntin keisarikunta ja Epeiroksen despoottikunta. Näistä Nikaian keisarikunta valtasi Konstantinopolin takaisin 1261.

Lämpimästi tervetuloa!

Kuva: David voittaa filistealaiset. Fol. 39, Morgan Bible (1240-50-l.)

17/09/2026

Workshop "Tragedy: literary, philosophical, and dramatic perspectives" 29-30 Oct 2026

Tampere University, Linna building, hall 113

Suffering, loss, catastrophic consequences; the apparent indifference of reality regarding our sense of the good and the just; human failings, conflicts, and their possible resolution – all of these experiences leave us perplexed and call for understanding, reflection, and human action. Tragic art, and especially staged and written tragedies, have for millennia heeded this call and thus occupied a crucial place in our attempts to explore the dark corners of the human experience – broken worlds and times out of joint.

This multidisciplinary workshop, gathering experts from literary studies, philosophy, the dramatic arts and theology, provides a dais for investigations into questions concerning tragedy and the tragic experience: its structure, scope, and importance. What kind of a dramatic and literary form is tragedy? What does it aim to depict, uncover, and produce? How is the tragic stage constructed? Does tragedy require a catharsis, closure, and resolution? Does tragedy help us understand the “tragic”, those aspects of the human experience that refuse unification and resolution? Can tragedy teach us to confront suffering, the value of sympathy and pity, and responsibility? Is tragedy ultimately a “classical” form, consigned to history – and if not, what do its contemporary forms and manifestations look like?

Guided by these questions, the workshop aims to discuss and explore tragedy from a broad theoretical and practical perspective. Bringing various perspectives and approaches into a mutual discussion, it intends not only to inquire into the structural elements of a literary and artistic form, but also into the possibilities (and shortcomings) of historical as well as contemporary tragedy and the tragic experience. Its ultimate aim is to bring into view some of the central emotional, ethical, and metaphysical facets of our everyday lives – lives inevitably shadowed by loss, suffering and catastrophe.

Programme

Thursday October 29, 2026

13:15 Opening words (Sari Kivistö, Sami Pihlström, Panu-Matti Pöykkö, Ilja Lehtinen)

13:30 Session I
Ilja Lehtinen: Can we afford the tragic anymore? Towards the apocalyptic
Katariina Numminen: Out of Time. Tragedy, Creativity and Other Anachronisms

15:00 Coffee service

15:30 Session II
Esa Kirkkopelto: Is Your Tragic Suffering Sublime or Cathartic?
Vesa Vahtikari: What is a “Typical” Ancient Greek Tragedy Like?

17:00 Closing the day

Friday October 30, 2026

10:00 Session III
Natan Elgabsi: “Real life is not tragic”: Suffering, Narrative Comprehension, and the Psychology of Tragic Reversal
Aaron J. Goldman: The Fool’s Two-and-a-Half Faces: The Tragicomic Asymmetry of Christianity and ‘Paganism’ in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments

11:30 Lunch break

12:45 Session IV
Panu-Matti Pöykkö: Levinas’ Spectres
Sari Kivistö: Why Ismene?

14:15 Closing words

Picture: Georg Baxter, The Wreck of the Reliance, 1842

16/09/2026

The Academy Project "The Verses of Learning: Epideixis and the Cultural Stories of Nature at Early Modern Universities (VERSITAS)" organises a seminar on epideictic rhetoric in Tampere university in 22 Oct 2026. The seminar is in English and open to anyone interested.

Rethinking Epideictic Rhetoric

Pinni B4113, Kanslerinrinne 1, Tampereen yliopisto

Program

12:30 Opening words: Sari Kivistö

Session 1 (chair: Eeva-Liisa Bastman)

12:45 Raija Sarasti: Descriptive Epideictic Rhetoric: How to Praise Natural objects

13:15 Erika Pihl: The Cosmic Union: Natural Philosophy and the Vasa-Jagiellon Alliance in Henricus Mollerus’ Epithalamium (1562)

13:45 Päivi Mehtonen: Colonialist Dedication. The Persistent Patriotism of New Sweden Literature

14.15 coffee

Session 2 (chair: Erika Pihl)

14.45 Peter Sjökvist: Poetical Friends, and a Teacher in their Midst – From the Golden Age of Latin Poetry in Sweden

15.15 Eeva-Liisa Bastman: From Charm to Praise: Incantatory Rhetoric in an Early Modern Finnish Wedding Poem

15.45 Hannu Riikonen: Views on the Relationship between Music and Rhetoric in Dissertations at the Royal Academy of Turku

16.15 end discussion and publication

Picture: Laurent de la Hyre: Allegory of Rhetoric (1650). Wikimedia Commons.

16/09/2026

The Centre of Excellence in Meliorist Philosophy of Suffering (MePhiS) and its research group Suffering and Meliorism in Literature and the Philosophy of Literature in Tampere University organise a symposium on optimism and its critique. Please submit your abstract by 25 Sept (instructions below).

Optimism and Its Critique: Literature and the Philosophy of Literature

Symposium, 14-15 April 2027, Pinni B1096, Tampere University

Optimism is often understood as the expectation that outcomes will turn out well, or that suffering, conflict, and uncertainty are ultimately compatible with meaning, improvement, or reconciliation. Yet optimism has also been persistently contested. Does optimism adequately acknowledge suffering, injustice, and failure? Can it obscure structural violence by reframing harm as meaningful, temporary, or necessary?

Philosophical critiques of optimism have emphasized its ethical risks. Optimism may minimize trauma, aestheticize suffering, or impose consolation where none is warranted. From this perspective, optimism becomes ethically suspect when it denies irreparable loss.

Literature provides a key site for examining these tensions. Literary works may acknowledge suffering while nevertheless affirming the possibility of change. Much modern and contemporary literature articulates fragile or self-critical forms of optimism, or turns instead toward meliorism: the view that the world can be made better through human effort and responsibility, without guarantees and without denial of loss.

In the philosophy of literature, optimism raises fundamental questions about meaning, representation, and ethical commitment. Can literature affirm value without redeeming suffering? Can critique and negativity be sustained without collapse into pessimism?

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- Philosophical critiques of optimism and their literary relevance
- Critiques of metaphysical, ethical, or political optimism in literary contexts
- Optimism, pessimism, and meliorism as ethical positions in literature
- Literature, suffering, and the limits of consolation
- Literary representations of hope, despair, endurance, and moral agency
- Anti-optimism, tragic realism, and negativity in literature
- Articulations of optimism through literary forms, endings, and genres
- Utopian ideals and their critique in literature
- Political optimism and literary form (for example, belief in progress, techno-optimism, and neoliberalism as responses to suffering arising from social problems and climate change, and their representation in literary works)
- Fictionality and optimism
- The role of literature in building a desirable future
- The optimism of reading (and writing)
- Optimism and the ethics of narrative

The symposium aims to foster critical dialogue on whether, and under what conditions, literature and the philosophy of literature can affirm hope without distortion.

We invite researchers working on these and related topics at the intersection of literature and philosophy to express their interest in presenting at the symposium. Please submit a proposal of approximately 100-150 words to the organizers at: [email protected] and [email protected] by 25 September 2026. Following the symposium, we hope to develop selected contributions into an edited volume on the same theme.

The symposium is organized by the research group Suffering and Meliorism in Literature and the Philosophy of Literature at Tampere University. The research group is part of the Centre of Excellence in Meliorist Philosophy of Suffering (MePhiS), funded by the Research Council of Finland.

08/09/2026

New publication: Sources and methods for the history of experience (eds. Reetta Eiranen, Riikka Miettinen, and Raisa Maria Toivo)

This open access book shows how the history of experience can be studied. Starting with the question of how past experiences can be traced, the volume explores how historical sources—from egodocuments to statistics and fiction—can reveal past realities in new ways. Accessible yet methodologically advanced, it offers historians and students alike a fresh toolkit for exploring human experience and expanding their research methods.

Most of the editors and many writers are (former) members of Trivium. The publication is written in the Academy of Finland's Centre for the History of Experience (HEX, 2018-2025) in Tampere university.

Read or download the book here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-22098-1

07/09/2026

Work opportunities in Tampere!

Apply for Senior Research Fellow or Doctoral Researcher in Trivium's vice leader, Academy Professor Sari Kivistö's projects:

1) A two-year Senior Research Fellow position is open in the Tampere-based project "Suffering and Meliorism in Literature and the Philosophy of Literature", which is part of the Centre of Excellence in Meliorist Philosophy of Suffering (MePhiS, Research Council of Finland, 2026–2033).

The application period is open for four weeks and closes on 11 September.

The job advertisement is available here: https://tuni.rekrytointi.com/paikat/?o=A_A&jid=3137

We especially encourage applications from scholars working at the intersection of literature and philosophy.

2) One or two four-year Doctoral Researcher positions are open at Tampere University in the project The Verses of Learning: Epideixis and the Cultural Stories of Nature at Early Modern Universities (VERSITAS), led by Academy Professor Sari Kivistö and funded by the Research Council of Finland (2026–2031).

The project explores nature in early modern literature (with a flexible chronological scope).

The application period is open for four weeks and closes on 11 September.

The job advertisement is available here:
https://tuni.rekrytointi.com/paikat/?o=A_A&jid=3136

We warmly welcome applications from researchers working at the intersections of nature, rhetoric, and literature.

Please feel free to circulate both announcements to anyone who might be a suitable candidate for the positions.