Esmail Khoi: The Poet as Observer and Creative Explorer

This article focuses on how Esmail Hkoi poetically inhabits the world of his poetry as an observer and visionary explorer. Its aim is to make manifest how he engages his readers in reciprocal poetic dialogues to communicate his unique vision of the lived world. The dialogic function of his poetry is then examined as the ground of emergence of an experiential poetic mode of knowledge of the human condition. The article also considers Khoi's poetry as work done in the fields of language, alchemically transmuting everyday language of communication into poetic discourse. Finally, an analysis of his poem “To the Aged Mulberry Branch” explicates how Khoi can create a world of imagination whole and entire unto itself by his minimalist approach to poetry.     

REVIEW ESSAY: THE FRAGILITY OF CHILDHOOD: GABRIELLE ROY'S CES ENFANTS DE MA VIE

Both Alice Munro and Margaret Laurence have named L.M. Montgomery’s work— particularly her books about Emily—as childhood readings that are central to their development as writers. This essay explores how Montgomery’s three books about Emily—Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily’s Quest—provide a persisting imaginary that The Diviners by Laurence and Who Do You Think You Are? by Munro reflect.     

Minimally destructive DNA extraction from archaeological artefacts made from whale baleen

Here we demonstrate the successful extraction and amplification of target species DNA from artefacts made of whale baleen collected from excavations of past palaeo-Eskimo and Inuit cultures in Greenland. DNA was successfully extracted and amplified from a single baleen bristle of 1.5 cm length dated based on archaeological context to the period of the Saqqaq culture, more than 4000 years ago and following decades of storage at room temperature at the National Museum. The results reveal ancient baleen in archaeological material as a potential source of DNA that can be used for population genetic studies. We conclude that genetic investigation of historical baleen collections can contribute to our knowledge of the prehistoric population genetics of baleen whales, for example by quantifying the impact of modern whaling on the genetic diversity of bowhead whales.     

The role of Finland in the Swedish national and war economies during Sweden's period as a great power

The primary goal of this article is to present anti-Semitism as the underlying reason for the rejection of Israel-Jakob Schur's PhD dissertation at the University of Helsinki and at Åbo Akademi University in the late 1930s. The article analyzes the different stages of the processes and the ideological background and motives underpinning the rejections. Schur's antagonists were right-wing professors, some of whom sympathized with National Socialism and/or maintained contacts with eminent German anti-Semitic ideologues. The article analyzes the rhetoric of the written statements, which contain ideas of Christian anti-Semitism as well as other anti-Jewish stances. Moreover, the article demonstrates that Schur was regarded as an alien element in the Finnish academe, and the topic of his research – circumcision – was considered non-national from the perspective of Finnish science.