Lani Hartikainen

So honored that our blog post with @lanihart.bsky.social made the longlist! 🎉 Really exciting that our piece translating the academic work on tribalism resonated

read the blog post below and the our academic article here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

🔮 Populism research demands more nuance: enter tribalism Tribalism has emerged as a key term in political discussions — often used, but not clearly defined. Ilana Hartikainen and Zea Szebeni propose reconceptualising ‘tribalism’ to differentiate forms of po...

🎉 Congratulations to @lanihart.bsky.social and @zeaszebeni.bsky.social who made the Loop Best Blog 2024 longlist for their article 'Populism research demands more nuance: enter tribalism', from our 🔮 #FutureOfPopulism series.
➡️ ow.ly/VlNO50W3moN

It was a lovely surprise to hear that @zeaszebeni.bsky.social's and my blog post on differentiating tribalism from populism was longlisted for the best Loop blog piece of 2024. Now we're psyched to enter this year's competition! Give our almost prize-winning post a read below:

A girl holding leashes for both a real corgi and a walking corgi balloon

I think I can also safely say that years of branding efforts paid off, because I received no less than 5 gifts/cards that had something to do with corgis. Jupi meeting the walking corgi balloon was a definite highlight!

I hope this will be inspiration for all my fellow PhD travelers - I can genuinely say that I had so much fun not only with the celebrations afterward, but also at the defense itself. It turns out that when you devote yourself to something for almost 7 years, you are indeed prepared to talk about it!

A cookie with a graduation hat in front of some house plants

It’s official - I am #PhDone!!!

I defended my thesis on populism, democracy, and collective memory through CZ & SK case studies on Friday 🎉 Huge thanks to my wonderful opponent Kevin Deegan-Krause, my custos & supervisor @emiliapalonen.bsky.social, & everyone who showed up to support me!

Just another doll in the feed I can't stop thinking about those AI action figure starter packs

New Peripheral Politics newsletter post from @zeaszebeni.bsky.social, in which she explains why she just can't stop thinking about those inane AI action figure images that took over everyone's feeds a little while ago

Peripheral Politics | Substack Two researchers at the University of Helsinki, social psychology and political science, making their way through a world getting increasingly more insane. Click to read Peripheral Politics, a Substack...

🐀 Just launched Peripheral Politics with @lanihart.bsky.social Our new Substack explores the political stories that don't make headlines - from semi-peripheral countries to the absurd moments that reveal deeper truths. Subscribe!

peripheralpolitics.substack.com

Searching for the Democratic hat How do you sum up the movement, but on a hat?

How do you sum up an entire political movement on a baseball cap? Trump figured it out with #MAGA. #Democrats... haven't. @lanihart.bsky.social uses political theory to explain why this matters way more than you'd think

peripheralpolitics.substack.com/p/searching-...

Also, subscribe!

Hegseth, Waltz, Gabbard: Private Data and Passwords of Senior U.S. Security Officials Found Online Donald Trump's most important security advisers used Signal to discuss an imminent military strike. Now, reporting by DER SPIEGEL has found that the contact data of some of those officials, including ...

But her emails

A screenshot of the paper titled "Populist truth-making: a conceptual approach to populism in the context of European museums" published in the International Journal of Heritage Studies.

Our paper on "Populist Truth-Making" is out! This has been 4 years in the making and reflects our project's ongoing discussions about the concept.

#openaccess (thanks HU!) here:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

An exciting hybrid event co-organized by our project on March 5 at The Institute of Ethnology in Prague with @jleser.bsky.social www.eu.avcr.cz/en/news/The-...

Not that I can read this, but maybe you can! It’s building on our article about pseudohistory in nation building, looking at Slovak narratives of the medieval king Svätopluk. Will also be posting the English version soon!

Brawls with the bishops, very Henry VIII energy here, I like it

I submitted my thesis for pre-examination in November, but I honestly think I'm prouder of getting #BananaPopulism published. @zeaszebeni.bsky.social, @soschma.bsky.social, Mike Cole, and I had this idea for a funny blog about populist weirdness way back in 2019, and now it's real populism theory!

(See, pseudohistory, I can do it too! But I think it could work, it’s like how every single Jewish holiday food is symbolic on 7 levels, god forbid we should eat something that isn’t fried at a Hanukkah party)

Traditionally, #feastoftheass bundts have incorporated a sharp or sour fruit or berry into the mix - like red currant and lemon - to mark the bitterness of the order forcing Jesus & fam out of Bethlehem; the sweetness of the Bundt celebrates the ass’ lovely character ❤️

A photo of a Bundt cake with votive candles burning behind it

A very happy #feastoftheass to those who celebrate! Thanks to @dansavage.bsky.social for putting this very important celebration back on our collective calendar 🙏 This red currant and lemon Bundt with lemon glaze is my contribution to the festivities 🫏

Check out our newest article with @lanihart.bsky.social and Jonáš Syrovátka below. Pseudohistory, slow joy and a medieval king.. need I say more?!

The political insistence on building this statue — and the reluctance to make it present what has been historically attested about Svätopluk — reflect, in our analysis, the slow joy linked to this mythologized version of him that has emerged over the last two centuries./fin!

A picture of the Svätopluk statue at Bratislava Castle, which is also the focus of our article.

He wasn't connected to anything *Slovak* as such, but Slovak leaders since the 19th century have articulated him as a great Slovak, linking him with national pride. This takes place in public; we chose Svätopluk because of his statue at Bratislava castle, which was the center of a huge scandal.

A medieval painting of King Svätopluk and others

Medievalist pseudohistories are particularly salient examples, because while they may center an individual from the past, the general lack of historical documentation leaves a lot of room for, let’s say, character development. We explored this through King Svätopluk I of Great Moravia, 871-894.

Over time, sustained engagement with pseudohistorical narratives of national greatness builds what we call ‘slow joy’, or a gradual accumulation of positive emotions linked to the subject of the narrative.

My colleagues Jonáš Syrovátka and @Zea Szebeni and I studied pseudohistory, and pseudohistory's role in nation-building. We argued that a pseudohistorical narrative emerges through a long term process, rather than reflecting a single character or event from the past.

We took part in a special issue of the Slovenský národopis/Slovak Ethnology journal on 'slow memory' (check out @slowmemo.bsky.social). Memory studies tends to focus on how specific events/characters resonate now, while slow memory looks at past events that occurred gradually, over a long time.

SAV - Časopisy Slovenská akadémia vied vykonáva špičkový základný výskum, dlhodobý strategický a aplikovaný výskum a vývoj a poskytuje prístup k vedeckej infraštruktúre.

🚨New publication alert!🚨

TL;DR: national identity, pseudohistory, slow memory, discourse analysis, Slovakia, medievalism

Here’s the link, but read on below if you’d like a little run-down!

Personally, I think that @goingmedieval.bsky.social and @mattlewishistory.bsky.social of the Gone Medieval podcast had something to do with this. I now regret not becoming a medievalist, so instead I'll be a political scientist who cosplays by looking at medievalism in politics today.

We would also like to thank our two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and helpful comments on our manuscript. This round of revision was a really heartening experience — sometimes, academia works exactly as it should.

The article was an absolute pleasure, especially because of my fantastic co-authors Jonáš and Zea and the team at Slovak Ethnography. Thanks also to Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius, @minnastiina.bsky.social, and the rest of the participants at our 2023 workshop on alternative epistemologies in CEE.

The political insistence on building this statue — and the reluctance to make it present what has been historically attested about Svätopluk — reflect, in our analysis, the slow joy linked to this mythologized version of him that has emerged over the last two centuries.