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Mikko Toivanen

@mtoiv.bsky.social

3.7K followers 2.1K following 1.9K posts

Historian of colonialism and modern SE Asia @UTU.fi｜🌲 Currently working on transimperial histories of forestry 🌲｜Previously: colonial cities 🏛️ and travel 🚢｜PhD from EUI｜📚 occasionally writes about books and films 🎞️

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 23d

It's publication day! 🎉🥳 Very soon I won't need to post about this anymore, but in the meantime, if you're interested in the colonial roots of modern tourism, or the role of leisure travel in producing knowledge about the world, check it out. Also as e-book on JSTOR: www.jstor.org/stable/jj.31...

Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · Sep 2

Author copies have arrived! The book is demonstrably real! Official publication date in about two weeks but I've heard it will already be available at ENIUGH next week. Check out the full info over at: lup.nl/publications...

Three copies of my monograph Empire, Tourism, and Colonial Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka on a table, with a Leiden University Press postcard saying "Congratulations!" on top.

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Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Dr. Jeremy Swist @metalclassicist.bsky.social · 12d

Country #76 of my Cooking Round the World challenge is ICELAND 🇮🇸

Plokkfiskur is boiled whitefish (I used cod) & mashed potatoes mixed together with milk, flour, & sautéed onions. Served with dark rye & butter, plus a Scandinavian cucumber salad dressed in white vinegar, sugar, salt, & fresh dill.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 9h

That's what I keep telling my editors...

Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 9h

Thanks!

Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 10h

Two essays in the pipeline now that will cement my reputation as a public intellectual devoted to critiquing current Finnish politics by reference to Southeast Asian history. You've got to find your niche, you know.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 10h

Those chapters capture so much about the banality but also the fragility of the experience: the search for the transcendental and the disillusionment. Tourism is really fundamentally about death, I came to think around that time, and I've rarely seen it described as delicately as in this book.

Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 11h

Another reason is that I read this while working on my PhD on (colonial-era) leisure travel, and living in Florence, so I was thinking about the experience of tourism *a lot*. There's a chapter that's written from the perspective of a museum guard at the Louvre, and another on the Acropolis.

Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 11h

In theory that's what literature is all about but I don't know, in practice it's a pretty rare experience. I read this 7-8 years ago and I've only come across a handful of comparable works since.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 11h

Nobel discourse today is just silly so some more thoughts on Seiobo There Below. I love this book for a couple of reasons. One is that it's so blatantly *about* a big concept (beauty) and goes about examining it in such rich, unexpected ways that you truly feel like you've learned something new.

Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 1d

Okay can I just say that Krasznahorkai's Seiobo There Below is truly one of my absolute favourite novels ever.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 14h

wait your top-ten list has eleven entries

Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Gábor Egry @gegry.bsky.social · 16h

Fresh from the press! Check out the whole volume "Habsburg Natures : Imperial Governance and Environment in Central Europe, 1850-1918" eds. Jawad Daheur, Iva Lučić
www.jstor.org/stable/jj.29...

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 1d

Very strangely, despite loving it I have only ever read that one novel by him, so I guess this would be a good moment to expand. Well, there might be a queue at the library I guess...

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 1d

Okay can I just say that Krasznahorkai's Seiobo There Below is truly one of my absolute favourite novels ever.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 1d

Okay can I just say that Krasznahorkai's Seiobo There Below is truly one of my absolute favourite novels ever.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 1d

Suuri kiitos, että pidätte tätä asiaa esillä!

Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Mari Välimäki @marivalimaki.bsky.social · 1d

Kirjoitimme @utu.fi Suomen historian oppiaineen blogiin siitä, miten tutkijat kokevat Kansallisarkiston Digitaalisen toimittamisen mallin

blogit.utu.fi/suomenhistor...

📷Taina Saarenpää

Kuvassa arkistokärryssä useita paksuja niteitä

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 1d

Oh man, Southland Tales. Yes.

Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Reetta Humalajoki @reettaeh.bsky.social · 2d

Etsimme tutkijatohtoria hankkeeseemme 'Omia, lainata, varastaa? Alkuperäiskansakulttuurien käyttö Suomessa läpi 1900-luvun'! Hanketta rahoittaa @koneensaatio.fi ja luvassa olisi 16 kuukauden työskentelyapuraha. Hakuilmoitusta saa jakaa ja minulta saa lisätietoja.

agricolaverkko.fi/ilmoitukset/...

agricolaverkko.fi

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 2d

And there goes my global forestry article into the gentle hands of the reviewers, let's see how my reinvention as an environmental historian works out.

Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Matthew Hurst @mrmhurst.bsky.social · 9d

British colonial officials destroyed countless files before decolonisation. But one colony has been neglected by the literature: Hong Kong. My latest paper in @jich.bsky.social examines the past, present and future of Hong Kong colonial government migrated archives: doi.org/10.1080/0308...

Hong Kong Colonial Government Migrated Archives at Hanslope Park

Following the revelation in 2011 that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office was sitting on the migrated archives of dozens of colonial governments, almost 20,000 files were transferred from s...

doi.org

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Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Dónal Hassett @donalh.bsky.social · 3d

A great new post on researching the history of former Ascari in Eritrea by our own @camilleriana.bsky.social. colvet.eu/338-2/

Dr Nicola Camilleri, ‘Former Eritrean Soldiers in the Italian Colonial Army: Fragments of Life and Documentation’. | Colvet.eu

colvet.eu

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Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Dolly Jørgensen @dollyjorgensen.bsky.social · 4d

It’s real!!
I just got my first copy of Ghosts Behind Glass and it is beautiful. You all really need to order your copies. You will not regret it. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Double page spread with a photo of diorama

Chapter 3 Cursed treasures on left, lion on right

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 4d

got way more into horror these past years for precisely this reason

Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 4d

"man is born free and..."

Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 15d

Very pleased that my piece 'Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity' has been published in @urbanhistory.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/S096...
Many thanks to @mctom.bsky.social for organising the roundtable that got these thoughts going back in 2023! #UrbanHist #EnvHums

Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity | Urban History | Cambridge Core

Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity

doi.org

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 10d

I'd moan about far less. Hope there's progress soon.