Tuuli Lähdesmäki

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Tuuli Lähdesmäki (PhD in Art History, DSocSc in Sociology, Title of Docent in Art History at the University of Jyväskylä and in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki) is an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Jyväskylä (JYU). Her recent research interests and publications focus on EU cultural and heritage politics and policies, meaning-making processes in cultural heritage and memory, strategies of interpreting the past, identity and identity politics, and European narratives. She has actively applied and successfully received extremely competed for external research funding, altogether over €4,3 M. She has led the ERC St.G project EUROHERIT exploring EU heritage policies and initiatives and the construction of the European dimension of cultural heritage, and an Academy of Finland’s Postdoctoral research project (ID-ECC) and an Academy Fellow project (EUCHE) exploring EU cultural and identity politics and politics of belonging. She has also led a JYU’s consortium partnership in the DIALLS project, funded from Horizon2020 Programme, investigating dialogue and argumentation in cultural literacy learning in Europe. She is currently leading an Academy of Finland research project examining heritage diplomacy in the EU's external cultural relations (HERIDI). She is also one of the three PIs in JYU’s research profiling area Crises Redefined: Historical Continuity and Societal Change (CRISES) leading its focus area ‘Displacement and Belonging’. Moreover, she is a local leader of the Experiencing Europe Lab in a research alliance fostering transnational higher education and mobility (FORTHEM), funded by the European Universities Initiative under the Erasmus+ program.

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Research interests: monuments, public art, public space, reception of art and cultural phenomena, discourse studies, cultural heritage, cultural memory, strategies of interpreting the past, cultural identity, identity politics, heritage politics, intercultural dialogue, the European Capital of Culture, the European Heritage Label, European identity, EU heritage policy, heritage diplomacy

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