Mikko Toivanen
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 🎞️
- Been listening to lots of Finnish radio adaptations recently, greatly enjoyed Stanisław Lem's The Investigation, a horror mystery that gestures at a detective story before meandering to a shrug and a suggestion that maybe there is no causation just random events.
- Searching Google Books with my exact name brings up nothing even though there are, you know, several books I authored in the database.
- Reposted by Mikko ToivanenOut now! Check out out upcoming Special issue on Business and Labour in German Colonialism. Thanks for this great collaboration @pocobusiness.bsky.social @jzurlage.bsky.social @debneill.bsky.social Mona Rudolph Michael Rösser
- See Mona Rudolph & Nina Kleinöder's introduction to the upcoming special issue 'Business and Labour in German Colonialism', currently #FreeAccess : doi.org/10.1080/0308...
- Reposted by Mikko Toivanen*drum roll* Here is the cover for my book, which will be published by @cornellupress.bsky.social on 15 April 2026! I thought it would be nice to share a bit of info on who these men were and how their lives and interests inspired the design...
- Reposted by Mikko ToivanenOur book is out today! 🎉 "Cultural Landscapes of Energy" adds a historical perspective to current debates on energy transition by bringing together conflicting histories around work, habitation and leisure in landscapes impacted by energy production across Europe.
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- Kids today should not be deprived of the experience of spending their pocket money on import DVDs because they're desperate to see more films with that one actor they've got a crush on.
- Listening to an adaptation of Charles Dickens' The Chimes on the radio. In theory, this is about as conventional a choice of holiday programming as you can get. Yet, in 2025, its politics feel unabashedly radical in a way that is not particularly flattering of where we are right now as a society.
- 2025 in films! 🧵 Picking best film of the year is both easier and more difficult this year because, for various reasons, I haven't been to the cinema as much as usual. Pick of the (small) bunch was almost certainly Rungano Nyoni's 'On Becoming a Guinea Fowl'.
- I have belatedly been made aware that cult Japanese drone/metal/noise band Boris have released a rendition of Last Christmas??? Happy Holidays everyone!
- I see one the reviewers of my article snuck in their report just before logging off for the year but hey, happy holidays, it's a good one! Let's deal with it at some point in 2026.
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- 🚨 Nyt on nimet paperissa eli kirjaa pukkaa! Kollega @juhahaavisto.bsky.social'n kanssa kirjoittamani kirja suomalaisen metsänhoidon 🌲 historiasta ilmestyy vuonna 2027 Siltalan kustantamana. 🥳🎉 Markkinointikampanja alkaa nyt!
- 🚨 Ending the year on the happy news that the publishing contract for our trade book on the history of Finnish forestry 🌲 has been signed! 🥳🎉 I'm writing it with my good colleague/friend/sometime nemesis @juhahaavisto.bsky.social, coming out in 2027 with Siltala Publishing.
- Havainto tästä Liisa Vuonokari-Bomströmin hyvästä blogikirjoituksesta. Kansallisarkiston uuden strategian visualisointi näyttäisi olevan tekoälyllä tuotettu, mutta onko sen sisältökin? Mitään kovin järkevää progressiota en noista nuolista löydä.
- As a sometime LRT contributor (long story) and a general public broadcasting fan, this sort of thing is concerning. And happening all over, including in Finland.
- Reposted by Mikko ToivanenThe @contingent-mag.bsky.social ’s book list 2025 is now published and it includes e.g. @mtoiv.bsky.social ’s ”Empire, Tourism, and Colonial Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka” and Brian Harnetty’s ”Noisy Memory: Recording Sound, Performing Archives” to name 2/39 🤩
- Reposted by Mikko Toivanen"New cross-Nordic research project on forest cultural heritage" - the official press release and announcement for ROOTS, @wrigleyca.bsky.social's new Nordforsk-funded #envhum project on forest cultural heritage.
- As of today I've got essays out in the current print issues of the two biggest culture magazines in Finland, so I've officially made it as a public intellectual. Which is great! All that money will really come in handy when academia eventually decides to ditch me.
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- Tämä suomalaisen metsähistorian kolonialistisia ulottuvuuksia perkaava esseeni löytyy nyt myös @voima.fi -lehden tuoreimmasta printtinumerosta. Juuri sopivasti joulun lukutuokiohin!
- Hey so yeah it's in Finnish but I'm really quite proud of this essay, which was published this week. It's about the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), about "running amok", and about the uses and abuses of the concept of rationality in times of crisis.
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- Uusin Nuoren Voiman numero on nyt kaupoissa! Mukana myös tämä esseeni, jossa kirjoitan Atlantin virtausjärjestelmästä, amokjuoksijoista ja järkipuheesta nykypolitiikassa.
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- Shades of this absolute gem from the Hikayat Abdullah (1843):
- Reposted by Mikko ToivanenGlad to see my article about race and censuses in 19th-c Buenos Aires published by @socscihistory.bsky.social. I see it as demographic evidence of structural racism, but it contradicts the widespread view of underenumeration doi.org/10.1017/ssh....
- Album of the year for me, app or no app: A Danger to Ourselves by Lucrecia Dalt. lucreciadalt.bandcamp.com/album/a-dang...
- Only now learning that Arthur Conan Doyle apparently felt detective stories were beneath him and wanted to make his name with grand historical novels.
- After a good time last year, I've decided to pick another bundle of ETA Hoffmann stories for Christmas reading this time around. Enjoyment enhanced by the fact that I'm actually getting most of the German by now.
