Event Review: The Maple Leaf and Eagle Conference 2022
The biennial Maple Leaf and Eagle Conference is an event of legendary status both in Helsinki and far outside Finland. For almost four decades, it has kept the tradition of the longest running conference at the University of Helsinki uninterrupted and has provided a dynamic venue of exploring and explaining the phenomenon that is North America. Despite the challenges and troubles of recent times, the event successfully took place in May 2022. For the first time in its history, the conference was organized in a hybrid form, both face-to-face and online. However, that was not the only thing exceptional about this year’s conference. It was set against a turbulent background of an unprecedented ongoing war and a refugee crisis in the middle of Europe, and Finland’s and Sweden’s historical decision to abandon their long-lasting policy of non-alignment in favor of applying for a NATO membership. These events are sure to […]
Review: Maple Leaf and Eagle Conference – “North America: Inclusive, Exclusive, and Exceptional” (Online)
The biennial Maple Leaf and Eagle Conference is the longest running conference at the University of Helsinki, and one of the most prominent academic events in the field of North American studies organized in Finland. Since 1986, it has been being a vibrant venue for exploring North America from a variety of political, ideological and conceptual backgrounds, and a truly interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary conference attracting numerous participants from both sides of the Atlantic. This year it invited scholars to investigate the fluid boundaries and meanings of inclusion, exclusion, and exceptionalism in North American contexts. Yet while sending the CFP in 2019, the conference organizers had no idea how exceptional (and thus fitting the topic of the conference) the coming year of 2020 would be. It has happened to be the year of historic events that are to define the fate of North America and the whole world for years and […]