Tuija Pulkkinen, Academy Professor
Academy professor, Academy of Finland (1.1.2011 – 31.12.2015)
Professor, Gender studies (1.8.2008 – )
Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies
P.O.Box 59
FI-00014 University of Helsinki
FINLAND
tel: +358 09 191 23798
fax: +358 09 191 23315
e-mail: tuija.pulkkinen@helsinki.fi
Research interests
Politics of Philosophy and Gender in Feminist Theory
My areas of expertise include philosophy, history and political science; within Women’s studies, I would define myself as a multidisciplinary scholar, whose interest lies in theorizing.
My research has focused mainly on philosophy and politics. For example, I have studied Hegel, the history of political concepts (Valtio ja vapaus 1988; [State and Freedom]) and contemporary French philosophy and postmodern thought (The Postmodern and Political Agency, 1996). I have written on Michel Foucault, and within feminist theory my special favorite has been Judith Butler, whose work I introduced here in Finland at an early stage.
In the beginning of the 1990s, for some years, I was a visiting scholar at the UC Santa Cruz, in the U.S. Towards the end of the decade I taught for a year at the University of Greifswald in Germany. In my work I currently concentrate on the traces of different philosophical traditions in feminist theory. In addition, I examine feminist political theory. I am constantly preoccupied by conceptual orders of gender, particularly the possibilities of conceptualizing different genders. As the professor of Women’s studies I aim at creating a challenging learning environment and a program of high quality for my students, offering them effective means for a critical analysis of the gendered reality.
- Professor, Women’s studies, University of Jyväskylä
- Professor, Political Science, University of Jyväskylä (leave of absence)
- Vice-director, Centre of Excellence in Political Thought and Conceptual Change (CoE PolCon), Academy of Finland
- Research team leader, Politics of Philosophy and Gender (PPhiG) within CoE PolCon, Academy of Finland
- Senior Research Fellow, Academy of Finland and the Christina Institute for Women’s Studies, University of Helsinki
- Vice leader of the Polity, Contingency and Conceptual Change project, Academy of Finland
- Docent at the Department of Social and Moral Philosophy (University of Helsinki)
- Docent of Philosophy, Women Studies and Political Science (University of Jyväskylä)
- Docent of Practical Philosophy and Political History (University of Turku)
Areas of specialization
- Political theory
- German idealism (Kant, Hegel, Snellman)
- Poststructuralism (Foucault, Lyotard)
- Feminist philosophy, Gender studies (Butler)
- Conceptual history (‘State’, ‘Freedom’, ‘Volk’, ‘Nation’)
- Hannah Arendt