Polarts research
The research of the Politics and the Arts team focuses on the exchange between political thought and the arts. The idea of reading the arts politically in non-reductive ways entails the necessity to take the contribution of the arts to political thought and politics seriously, and to refrain from straightforward usages of the arts as illustrations for political theories and arguments. Artistic representations and performances have a potential to reframe political debates, conflicts and theories, calling for specialist of the field. The work of the team comprises visual arts, music, literature, and aesthetic theory.
From the beginning, the research team has worked as a node within international networks. The seniors of the team have worked within the international Politics and the Arts Network, which has a Standing Group position within the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). The team has also established intensive cooperation with the British-based network Art and Politics. The membership structure of the team reflects this international orientation; the team includes members and associated members from Canada, Germany, Italy and Israel. Within Finland, the team also has a strong national character; the team has members from Jyväskylä, Tampere and Helsinki.
This international structure of the team has a strong impact on the practical approach of the team. The series of Polarts’ own international symposia has contributed to ensuring the continuity within the team, discovering new international and national connections, and introducing the doctoral students into international academic cultures. This series of symposia includes Arts and Terror (Jyväskylä 29.5.-1.6.2006), The Politics of Forgetting (Halifax 22-24 May, 2008), and Arts, Violence and Imagination (London 22-24 October 2009), and The Senses of the Political (Jyväskylä 8-10, June, 2010), and the forthcoming symposium in Verona, 2011. In addition to these symposia, the team has been active in arranging Politics and the Arts Group panels and sections within the biannual ECPR General Conferences (in Budapest 2005, Pisa 2007 and Potsdam 2009), as well as panels for the International Political Science Association (IPSA). The volume Terror and the Arts (Matti Hyvärinen and Lisa Muszynski, editors) by Palgrave Macmillan gathers and illustrates the work carried out within the team.