Performative Histories, Foundational Fictions

In Performative Histories, Foundational Fictions, Anu Koivunen analyzes the historicity as well as the intertextuality and intermediality of film reception as she focuses on a cycle of Finnish family melodrama and its key role in thinking about gender, sexuality, nation, and history. Based on extensive empirical research, Koivunen argues that the Niskavuori films have inspired readings in terms of history and memory, feminist nationalism and the men's movement, left-wing allegories and right-wing morality as well as realism and melodrama.