Kia Lindroos, Ph.D
Professor
Political Science / Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy
Chair/Convenor of the Politics and the Arts Group
Politics and the Arts (Polarts) research team vice-leader
Tel. +358 14 260 3073
Fax +358 14 260 3101
GSM: 050 3435 218
E-mail: lindroos@cc.jyu.fi
Postal address:
P.O. Box 35 (MaB)
FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä
Kia Lindroos’ research is a continuation of her long standing interests in political theory, politics, and time and aesthetics. The main focus is on temporality, in which the nature of political time appears as a core question. This is connected to the broader issues of political contingency and change. This work is based on her extensive studies and publications on Walter Benjamin’s thought, which serve as a starting point in the endeavour to deepen her knowledge of both the conception of temporality, which she refers to as ‘kairological’, as well as its limitations. The research will result in the completion of the monograph, Political Cairology, in 2010.
The monograph The Politics of Vision (2007) is based on the examination of political images and the imaginary as representations of political ideas and actions that relate to political knowledge and memory, thus shaping our imaginary of history and the present time. The Politics of Vision expands these ideas towards the examination of images as concepts that offer perspectives on politics which vary according to the specific ‘reader’ (viewer) and time of perception/experience.
Here, in relation to the research team’s interest in narrative, it will be especially intriguing to outline the variation in terms of the ways in which one narrates a story/political event and/or the ways in which one might ‘picture’ a story or political event as a singular moment, as a visual conception of something that has happened.
‘Visuality’ (not to be confused with ‘visible’) is understood as having been a broad topic of interest during the Enlightenment period, and one might pay particular attention to the idea tai notion of ‘figurative spacing’ as a means of controlling or legislating the terrain upon which several concepts are articulated. In this sense, the politics of vision will also be discussed in Foucaultdian terms.
The various modes of image production, the political shaping and control of visuality in different eras and topics, such as looking or surveying, places a great deal of emphasis on the role of spectator. The different modes of looking/guiding the one’s gaze are to be seen as ‘conceptual changes’ that may be related to technological media (the technological ability to produce images) throughout different eras.