Research-oriented doctoral studies in the Cultural Study of Music, within the Doctoral Progamme in Music at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki.
The application period is 8–22 January 2025. The applicants are required to hold an applicable master’s degree. More information about the procedure is available here: https://www.uniarts.fi/en/guides/apply-to-doctoral-studies-in-music/#applying-for-the-research-study-programme.
The field of study covers a wide variety of topics, based on Cultural Studies methodology and the expertise of available supervisors:
Dr Kimi Kärki (kimi.karki@uniarts.fi) is a Lecturer in the Cultural Study of Music, Sibelius Academy (Seinäjoki unit), and holds Titles of Docent (Habilitation) in Cultural Heritage Studies (University of Turku) and Area and Cultural Studies (University of Helsinki). He has mainly published on the history stadium rock spectacles, talking machines, future imagining, and fascist aesthetics in popular culture. He is the director of the project Fascinating Fascism and its Affective Heritage in the Finnish Culture (Kone Foundation, 2021–2025). He is the President of European Popular Culture Association (2023–2026). He has also served in the board of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music in 2017–2023. He has a PhD in Cultural History from University of Turku, Finland, and has been a Visiting Fellow at Institute of Popular Music (University of Liverpool, 2006), and Fulbright Visiting Fellow at CWRU Center for Popular Music Studes & Rock and Roll of Fame Library and Archive (Cleveland, 2017). He is also an internationally touring musician, with more than 40 releases in heavy metal, progressive rock, ambient, and as a singer-songwriter.
Saijaleena Rantanen (saijaleena.rantanen@uniarts.fi) is a music historian and Professor of the Cultural Study of Music. She holds a Title of Docent (Habilitation) in Musicology at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests are in social, political and cultural history of music, and in marginalised people and phenomena in particular. Her research areas include migration, labour history and the role of women as musical and cultural influencers. Currently, she leads a research project The Land of Dreams – Migration and Music from the 19th Century to the Present (Finnish Cultural Foundation, South Ostrobothnia Regional Fund 2024–2026). She has been working as Director of MuTri Doctoral School and Research Unit. She is also Chair of the Research Association Suoni, which focuses on activist and social research in music.
Antti-Ville Villén (antti-ville.villen@uniarts.fi) is a cultural scholar and Professor of the Cultural Study of Music. He holds Titles of Docent (Habilitation) in Popular Music Studies (University of Helsinki) and the Study of Audiovisual Media Music (University of Tampere). Currently, he leads two projects, one on Diversity of Music Heritage in Finland (Kone Foundation, 2023–2025) and the other on Olfactory Cultural Studies (NordForsk, 2023–2025). He is the author of The Popular and the Sacred in Music (Routledge, 2022) and has served as Chair of the Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology (2016–2019) and the Nordic branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (2009–2013). Overall, his research interests include multimodal cultural studies, politics of the popular, the global postsecular postcolonial condition, audiovisual ethnomusicology, metahistory and music heritagisation.