Pajari Räsänen – Curriculum vitae academicae

Curriculum vitae academicae

Academic Education

Ph.D. 2007, University of Helsinki, Comparative Literature. Dissertation Counter-figures. An Essay on Antimetaphoric Resistance: Paul Celan’s Poetry and Poetics at the Limits of Figurality was publicly examined on October 27, 2007, in the University of Helsinki, with Professor Thomas Schestag (Johns Hopkins University, German and Romance Languages and Literatures) acting as opponent. The thesis was graded laudatur.
Master of Arts, 1999, University of Helsinki. Master’s thesis graded eximia cum laude approbatur. Main subject Comparative Literature, secondary subject Philosophy.

Publications

Publications in English
1. Monographs
  1. 2021: Encounters with Paul Celan’s Poetry: The Other’s Time (Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2021).
  2. 2007a: Counter-figures. An Essay on Antimetaphoric Resistance: Paul Celan’s Poetry and Poetics at the Limits of Figurality (diss., University of Helsinki 2007). Online e-text at the E-thesis web service (PDF).
2. Edited books and contributions therein
  1. 2010a: The Event of Encounter in Art and Philosophy: Continental Perspectives, ed. Kuisma Korhonen and Pajari Räsänen (Helsinki: Gaudeamus Helsinki University Press, 2010). In addition to the editorial work, the volume contains the following contributions of my own, all refereed:
    1. 2010b: Introduction, together with Kuisma Korhonen, pp. 7–31.
    2. 2010c: ‘Undecidably Equivocal’: On ‘Todtnauberg’ and Forgiveness, pp. 125–170. An article on Paul Celan’s poem Todtnauberg, his encounters with Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida’s work on the theme of forgiveness. Online version in the TUHAT database (PDF).
    3. 2010d: Fascinations (Some Thoughts after ‘From Perception to Fascination, from Representation to Image’), pp. 185–193. An afterword to Outi Alanko-Kahiluoto’s article in the volume, dealing with the different roles of the term fascination in Blanchot and Heidegger (Benommenheit).
  2. 2018: Chiasmatic Encounters: Art, Ethics, Politics, ed. Kuisma Korhonen, Arto Haapala, Sara Heinämaa, Kristian Klockars, Pajari Räsänen (New York: Lexington Books, 2018).
3. Other articles in English
  1. 2013: Breathings: On Paul Celan’s Poem Fahlstimmig, Figurationen 2/2013: 116-132. Refereed.
  2. 2007b: ‘Schreiben als Form des Gebets’: An Impossible Form of Apostrophe? (‘P.S.’ on a Fragment by Kafka as Adopted by Celan). Pp. 187-207 in Illuminating Darkness: Approaches to Obscurity and Nothingness in Literature, edited by Päivi Mehtonen. (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae. Humaniora 348.) Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. Refereed.
Publications in Finnish
1. Articles in refereed journals and books
  1. 2010: Abrahamin ironia, allegoria ja kirjallisuuden alkuperä. Kierkegaardin Pelko ja vavistus, Derridan Donner la mort. [Abraham’s Irony, Allegory and the Origin of Literature. On Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and Derrida’s Donner la mort.] Tiede ja edistys 1/2010:47-64. Summary at Tutkijaliitto’s web page
  2. 2006: Tiessäänolo paikallaolon tapana: ‘Kielikuvan’ tällä puolen [Being Away as a Way of Being There; an English version of this text is also integrated into my PhD thesis], pp. 81–97 in Heidegger: Ajattelun aiheita, ed. Jussi Backman and Miika Luoto, (Tampere: Eurooppalaisen filosofian seura, 2006).
  3. 2005a: Näkemiin [Au revoir; a paper presented at a memorial seminar for Jacques Derrida in Helsinki, November 18, 2004], Tiede ja edistys 2/2005:73-79. Online at the Elektra repository of the University of Helsinki, restricted access: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:ELE-1489378 (PDF).
  4. 2004a: Kun koemme jotain, mihin sana yksinäisyys haluaisi viitata [When We Experience Something that the Word Solitude Would Like to Refer To], review essay on Maurice Blanchot, Kirjallinen avaruus [L’espace littéraire], transl. Susanna Lindberg (Helsinki: ai-ai, 2003), Tiede ja edistys 3/2004:255-262. Online at the Elektra repository of the University of Helsinki, restricted access: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:ELE-1489239 (PDF).
2. Other articles, essays, reviews and translations
  1. 2024: Kulkea tiedon kautta ja unohtaa, review of Maurice Blanchot, Tuhon kirjoitus (translation of L'écriture du désastre), Finnish translation by Viljami Hukka (Helsinki: Tutkijaliitto, 2024), forthcoming (Nuori Voima 3/2024).
  2. 2023: Sanoitse uudelleenloihdittua, review of Kari Rummukainen, Kalasatama (Helsinki: ntamo, 2022), Kiiltomato 17.4.2023, link.
  3. 2019: Translation from German: pages 27–44, i.e. Dedication, General Preface, and Introduction of the Didactic Part of J. W. v. Goethe, Värioppi [Zur Farbenlehre], translated by Pirkko Holmberg and Pajari Räsänen (Helsinki: Teos, 2019).
  4. 2016a: Miltä näyttäisi kirjallinen muotokuva? [What Would a Literary Portrait Look Like?], mustekala.info, Vol. 62 (1/2016).
  5. 2016b: Surrealististen varantojen kollaasi, review of Kari Rummukainen, Joutomaa (Helsinki: ntamo, 2016) Kritiikki: Nuoren Voiman kirjakatsaus XV (autumn 2016), 51-55.
  6. 2013a: Puoliksitallotuilla pitkospoluilla: kohti impivaaralaista kirjallisuudenfilosofiaa, review of Kirjallisuus ja filosofia: rinnakkaisuuksia, risteyksiä, ristiriitoja, ed. Antti Salminen et al. (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura 2012), Kirjallisuudentutkimuksen aikakauslehti Avain 1/2013, 88-92.
  7. 2013b: Mahdoton elämäkerta: Derrida-biografia ja biografin päiväkirja, review of Benoît Peeters, Derrida (Paris: Flammarion, 2010); Trois ans avec Derrida : carnets d’un biographe (Paris: Flammarion, 2010), Kritiikki: Nuoren Voiman kirjakatsaus VIII (spring 2013), 124-130.
  8. 2012a: Romantiikan jäljillä, Mustekala.info 5/12.
  9. 2010: Translation from French: Maurice Blanchot: A rose is a rose …, Nuori Voima 6/2010:15-19.
  10. 2007: Derridan testamentti [Derrida’s Testament], review of Jacques Derrida, Sovereignties in Question: The Poetics of Paul Celan, ed. Thomas Dutoit and Outi Pasanen (Fordham University Press, 2005). Mustekala.info.
  11. 2005b: Translation from German: Paul Celan: Edgar Jené ja uni unesta [Edgar Jené und der Traum vom Traume], Nuori Voima 6/2005:3-5.
  12. 2004b: Kuin apteekin hyllyltä? [Straight Off the Pharmacy Shelf?], review of Jacques Derrida, Platonin apteekki ja muita kirjoituksia [a Reader-type compilation of Derrida’s texts translated into Finnish], ed. Janne Porttikivi and Teemu Ikonen (Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2003), Nuori Voima 2/2004.
  13. 2003a: Yorick-Sternen intiimit osat [Yorick-Sterne’s Private Parts, an essay on Laurence Sterne], Nuori Voima 4/2003:9-14.
  14. 2003b: Hämärästä hämärästä hämärään hämärään [From an Obscure Obscurity to an Obscurer Obscurity], review of Päivi Mehtonen, ed., Kielen ja kirjallisuuden hämärä [a collection of articles on literary obscurity] (Tampere: Tampere University Press, 2002), Nuori Voima 2/2003:49-51.
  15. 2002: Taas tulee sanomista [There Is Saying], review of Sara Heinämaa and Johanna Oksala, toim., Rakkaudesta toiseen. Kirjoituksia vuosituhannen vaihteen etiikasta [a compilation of articles on love and ethics] (Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2001), Nuori Voima 2/2002:63-65.
  16. 2001: Elämää ja estetiikkaa [Life and Aesthetics], review of Arto Haapala and Markku Lehtinen, eds., Elämys, taide, totuus [a compilation of articles on phenomenological aesthetics] (Helsinki: Yliopistopaino, 2001), Nuori Voima 4-5/2001:75-77.
  17. 1999a:Tieteisdekkari Wittgensteinin jäljillä [Science Fiction Detective on Wittgenstein’s Trail], review of the Finnish translation of Philip Kerr’s novel A Philosophical Investigation, www.sirkus.com [no longer available].
  18. 1999b: Hemingwayn matkassa [Travelling with Ernest], review of the Finnish translation of Ernest Hemingway’s posthumous novel True at First Light and also of The First 49 Stories, www.sirkus.com [no longer available].
  19. 1998a: Metaforan lahja [The Gift of Metaphor], Synteesi – taiteidenvälisen tutkimuksen aikakauslehti, 2/1998:84-107.
  20. 1998b: Apologia pro Euripides [an essay on Euripides’s Bacchae and Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy], Nuori Voima 4/1998.
Academic presentations
1. Academic presentations in English, in reverse chronological order
  1. 2023: Two lectures and a workshop on Paul Celan’s poetry at the German Department of Brown University, Oct. 31, Nov. 1 & 3, 2023.
  2. 2017: Conference Testimony. Poetry. Language, University of Belgrade, December 14–17, 2017; presentation Bearing Witness—One Language to Another, in Panel 1: Paul Celan as Paradigm of Testimonial Reading and Writing (video) on Thursday 14th, and participation in Round table about the poetry of Paul Celan on Saturday 17th.
  3. 2014ii: Conference Utopia: 4th Bi-annual Conference of the European Network for Avant-garde and Modernism Studies (EAM 2014), University of Helsinki, August 29-31, 2014; closed panel of Pajari Räsänen, Art and the Politics of Otherness: Avant-garde as a Challenge for Modernist Experience. Chair’s introduction by the title Avant-garde avant la lettre: The Absolutely Modern as a 19th Century Imperative.
  4. 2014i: Conference Derrida Today, Fordham University, New York City, USA, May 28-31, 2014; presentation by the title Abraham’s Irony, Allegory and the Origin of Literature: Derrida’s Donner la mort, Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling.
  5. 2012iii: Guest lecture in the Literature Dept. of University of Zurich, lecture seminar Wortdinge, Nov. 8, 2012, by the title Breathings: Paul Celan’s Wortdinge (Ankündigung, PDF).
  6. 2012ii: Conference Values in Literature and the Value of Literature, University of Helsinki, Sept. 12 – 14, 2012, presentation by the title ‘Picturing in Me a Hero of Romance’: The Ethos of Wuthering Heights (session abstracts, PDF).
  7. 2012i: Conference IAPL 2012: Archeologies of the Future, Tallinn University, Estonia, May 28 – June 2, 2012, presentation in the Special Panel: Folded Time, on Friday June 1, arranged, chaired and introduced by prof. Kuisma Korhonen, University of Oulu, by the title Imperfect Punctuation: Allegories of Irony, This Constant Interruption.
  8. 2009i: Colloquium Listening to the Silence: Martin Heidegger 120 years, University of Helsinki, Nov. 16, 2009; presentation entitled ’Completion’ and Its Metaphors: Heidegger’s Reading of Aristotle’s Metaphysics V, 16 and ‘Being-towards-the-end’ in Being and Time.
  9. 2009ii: English Philology Seminar on Metaphor, University of Helsinki, Oct. 23, 2009; presentation entitled ’The Visible Pregnant with the Invisible’: On the Phenomenological Critique of the Concept of Metaphor.
  10. 2009iii: Conference IAPL 2009: Double Edges – Rhetorics Rhizomes Regions, Brunel University, West London, UK, June 1-7, 2009, presentation in the Special Panel: Writing Wounds, arranged, chaired and introduced by prof. Kuisma Korhonen, University of Oulu, by the title Bleeding Analogies: Preliminary Remarks for a Poetics of Appresentation As a ‘Poetics of Singularity’.
  11. 2007i: Colloquium Encountering Language, University of Helsinki, Finland, October 29, 2007, presentation by the title Encountering Language?.
  12. 2007ii: Conference IAPL 2007: Layering: Textual Visual Spatial Temporal, Cyprus, Nicosia, June 4-9, 2007, invited presentation in the Invited Symposium: Palimpsests of Poetry. Philosophy and/as/in Poetry, arranged by prof. Merle A. Williams, Johannesburg, by the title The Trope of Circumcision (Following on From Derrida’s Shibboleth – for Paul Celan).
  13. 2006i: Colloquium Encounters in Art and Philosophy, University of Helsinki, November 9-10, 2006, presentation by the title ‘Undecidably Equivocal’: On Reading Celan’s ‘Todtnauberg’ (a slightly expanded version of the paper I presented already in Freiburg in June 2006; cf. below).
  14. 2006ii: Symposium Interpreting Shakespeare, October 26, 2006, University of Helsinki, organized by The Collegium for Advanced Studies and WSOY Publishing Company. Presentation by the title ‘Wherefore (sweet-heart?) What’s your metaphor? (Twelfth Night, I.iii.15-85).
  15. 2006iii: Conference IAPL 2006: Between Three: Art, Media, Politics, June 5–10, 2006, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany; Basel, Switzerland; Strasbourg, France. Presentation in the general session Continuing Derrida, chaired by Prof. Richard Beardsworth, by the title ‘Undecidably Equivocal’: On Reading Celan’s ‘Todtnauberg’.
  16. 2005i: Swedish-Finnish phenomenological workshop by the theme Derrida and Phenomenology, Stockholm, Södertörn Högskola, October 7-9, 2005, presentation by the title World’s Apart: Some Remarks for a Poetics of Appresentation.
  17. 2005ii: Conference IAPL 2005: Chiasmatic Encounters, University of Helsinki, June 2-7, 2005. Proposed session by the title Chiasmi and Parallels: Thinking Heidegger with the Poets, organized, chaired and introduced by Pajari Räsänen; speakers: Susanna Lindberg, Jussi Backman, Miika Luoto, Hannu Sivenius.
  18. 2003i: Colloqium Illuminating Darkness, University of Helsinki, November 21-22, 2003, invited presentation by the title ‘Schreiben als Form des Gebets’: (An Impossible) Form of Apostrophe. ‘P.S.’ on a Fragment by Kafka as Adapted by Celan.
  19. 2003ii: Conference IAPL 2003: Writing Aesthetics, University of Leeds, May 26-31, 2003. Presentation by the title Poetics As Bearing Witness – But Testamentary Witness.
  20. 2001: Conference Travelling Concepts: Meaning, Frame, Metaphor, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), March 7-9, 2001. Presentation by the title Columbarium: Resonant Earthenware in Paul Celan.
2. Academic presentations in Finnish
  1. 2015: The annual seminar of the Finnish Society of Aesthetics on the theme of Art, Freedom and Radical Responsibility (Taide, vapaus ja radikaali vastuu), chair, moderation and introductory presentation, Dec. 2, 2015.
  2. 2012: Seminar on Hölderlin in Tampere, Finland, Dec. 18, 2012, invited presentation on Friedrich Hölderlin's poetry and death (title: ‘Sillä sydämeni kuuluu kuolleille’: Hölderlin, kuolema ja puolet elämästä).
  3. 2004i: Colloquium Heidegger Suomessa [Heidegger in Finland], University of Helsinki, January 16, 2004, invited presentation by the title Tiessäänolo paikallaolon tapana: ’kielikuvan’ tällä puolen (GA 18, §11) [Being Away as a Way of Being There].
  4. 2004ii: Seminar Jacques Derrida in memoriam, University of Helsinki, November 18, 2004, invited presentation by the title Näkemiin [Au revoir].

Teaching

Several entry-level lecture courses in 18th to 20th century history of world literature (mostly French, German, and English literature) since 2001 in the University and Open University of Helsinki, as well in as the Workers’ Academy (Työväen Akatemia, Kauniainen, Finland); also the course The History of World Literature since 2021. Entry level practicum courses teaching in the analysis of literature, University of Helsinki and Workers’ Academy, since 2008. Guest lectures on various topics, such as Maurice Blanchot’s L’espace littéraire (Classics of Literary Criticism, Uni. Helsinki 2009), Derrida’s reading of Kierkegaard (Philosophy and Literature, Uni. Oulu 2010), Celanian poetics (English language lecture course Art Research in Finland for international students, 2010), Celan’s poetics and deconstruction (Artistic Research Lecture Seminar at the Theatre Academy, Helsinki, 2010), Romanticism and Post-Romanticism (Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, 2012-2015).
Commentator on Antti Salminen’s and Maria Valkama's doctoral dissertation projects in the Comparative Literature Research Seminar at the University of Tampere, Finland, 2009 and since 2011.

Expert tasks

Second supervisor of a doctoral dissertation (appointed in March, 2011, project suspended).
External examiner (1 of 2) for MA Antti Salminen’s doctoral dissertation From Abyss into Nothingness. Five Essays on Paul Celan’s Poetics, University of Tampere, 2010.
Peer review (open peer review, designated reader for the article “Transmediality and Multimodality in the Artistic Work of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää” by Kuisma Korhonen and Veli-Pekka Lehtola) for Shaping the North Through Multimodal and Intermedial Interaction, ed. Jarkko Toikkanen et al. (Palgrave, July 2022).
Peer reviews for e.g. Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology.
Examiner of Master’s Theses in Aalto University, Dept. of Art, and University of Helsinki, Comp. Lit.

Grants and a research position

Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation, three months’ research grant, 2023.
The Finnish Association of Non-fiction Writers, two book writing grants, 2013 and 2022.
Niilo Helander Foundation, research grant for three months, 2018.
Kone Foundation, full-time research grant, 2017.
The Finnish Cultural Foundation, full-time research grant 2001–2003, post doc 2011, 2012, 2014.
University of Helsinki (three months’ research grant), 2004.
Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation (six months’ research grant), 2004.
Research Fellow (MA; PhD awarded in Dec. 2007) in the project Encounters: Art and Philosophy, funded by the Academy of Finland, 2006-7.
Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation (post-doctoral research grant for one year), 2008.
Chancellor’s Travel Grant (University of Helsinki) in 2001, 2003, 2009, 2012, 2014.
Kone Foundation, 2014, member of a seven-piece workshop of Finnish translators and experts on translation theory, Suomen kielen ja viisauden rakastajat [Lovers of wisdom and the Finnish language], awarded a week’s residency at the Saari Manor, Mynämäki, Finland, May 2014.
Goethe Institute, 2013, a one-month grant to begin the Finnish translation of Goethe’s Zur Farbenlehre, shared with Pirkko Holmberg.

Expert assignments and positions of trust in the academic world

Member of the Academy Club for Young Scientists in the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, as a representative of philosophical and aesthetic research, for the period of 2009-2010.
Board member of the Finnish Association of Academic Researchers (SATY) 2008–2014, and again since 2020.
Vice member of the Executive Board of the Finnish Union of University Researchers and Teachers (FUURT) 2013–2014.
Board member in the Finnish Society for Aesthetics in 2015.

Other activities related to the academia

Member of the TATUSOTU group (an informal group of people working for the advancement of artists’ and academics’ social security and unemployment benefits in Finland); cf. tatusotu.blogspot.com (mostly in Finnish).