Mikko Toivanen

@mtoiv

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 🎞️

2.127 Folgt3.909 Follower2.341 Posts

Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir mtoiv.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· 5d

Going to keep up the summer's accidental reading theme of "early-20thC CEE literature of the fantastic" with this second-hand find, The New Travels of Lemuel Gulliver (1916/1921) by Frigyes Karinthy. Gulliver encounters artificial intelligence! And women!

A German edition of the book mentioned in the post lying on a table. Cover show's a vague feminine character against a backdrop of maybe a starry sky.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· 7d

Wondering how exactly these giveaway books ended up next to each other.

Books on the pavement, on the left 'The Bundesrat and the Federal System', on the right a kids' picture book on the animals of the jungle.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· 15d

*in a threatening voice*

University of Warwick alumni email subject line "our community doesn't stop after you graduate"

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· 23d

Reading this for summer fun (found it on a supermarket giveaway shelf), it's about a Dacian pagan monk who travels to Egypt to learn telepathy and then to Constantinople to save Christianity or something; anyway I'm sure it's all an analogy for something but I know nothing about 1920s Romania so...

a book on a table, the title and author are given as 'der goldene zweig' by mihail sadoveanu above a red-and-green drawing of a tree branch on its black cover

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Jun 23

With ten+ years of experience, are today's batch the best cinnamon buns I have ever made? No, probably not, but could be top five. Definitely top ten. Also did a PhD in that timeframe but more proud of these.

A tray with ten large-ish Finnish-style cinnamon buns freshly out of the oven.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Jun 23

Summer is the time for ghost stories and this season's pick is old favourite Gustav Meyrink's DER GOLEM, which I somehow haven't read yet despite it being his most famous work by far.

A blue pocket-book edition of Der Golem on a floor of wooden boards.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Jun 21

Midsummer baking adventures: rättänä, or a sort of traditional rye-crust blueberry pie. Eastern Finland represent.

a blueberry pie with a nicely browned lid of rye flour pastry baked in a deep round dish, on a table

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Jun 3

Been reading these and enjoying them, too, but slightly wondering to what extent it's a publicity stunt to tell everyone you're writing a septology when the contents of the whole would easily fit into a conventional trilogy?

Third volume of Solvej Balle's novel series 'On the Calculation of Volume' on a table.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· May 14

Berlin spring has been a bit patchy so far but I'm enjoying the harvest of the horse chestnut blossoms.

Streetscape littered with tiny red petals.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· May 5

Not flashy and I'm not sure how kind the years have been to Spike Jonze's Her (although arguably gaining in relevance by the day), but it's certainly pretty pointed and deliberate with its costume designs.

Joaquin Phoenix in the film 'Her' wearing a very early-2010s pastel red shirt and tan trousers.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Apr 18

Trying to look up stuff on the Swedish National Archives catalogue and, uh, if I asked someone to verify that they're human and they responded "well, I'm not a robot" that would sound suspicious as hell.

captcha box with swedish text "verifiera att du är människa" and checkbox "jag är inte en robot"

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Apr 17

Peter Thiel just wanna be like

Still from the 'congratulations' scene at the end of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Apr 16

Oh hello, the latest issue of @urbanhistory.bsky.social is out, containing my article 'An invitation to a party? Staging urban proximity and the colonial public in nineteenth-century Batavia'. Check it out if interested in colonial uses of ceremonials, history of Jakarta etc: doi.org/10.1017/S096...

An invitation to a party? Staging urban proximity and the colonial public in nineteenth-century Batavia

Mikko Toivanen

Abstract: This article examines the development of colonial public culture in Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies, over the second half of the nineteenth century, focusing on two moments of extended colonial ceremony: the city’s 250th anniversary in 1869 and the inauguration of Queen Wilhelmina in 1898. The analysis shows that over the course of the century, colonial ceremonial increasingly sought to assimilate facets of local cultural practices, while also expanding spatially into a more diverse set of neighbourhoods. Nevertheless, this new and superficially more representative order still maintained a strict internal hierarchy embedded in spatial and socio-cultural boundaries.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Apr 10

Someone took a photo of me in my partner's grandmother's coat when I wasn't looking and suddenly I have ascended to hipster nirvana.

man with long hair looking hip in a huge purple coat with a loosely tied grey scarf, outdoors in the sun

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Mar 25

More proofs! This one is about Dutch ghost stories from and about 19th-century Batavia (Jakarta) and how they mix European and Southeast Asian supernatural elements in working through the varied anxieties of the colonial experience. Coming out soon I hope.

Proofs showing chapter title:
'Enchanting Batavia: Fantastic Apparitions and the Colonial City in the Literary Journal Warnasarie (1848–58)'
Mikko Toivanen

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Mar 17

Proofs! My chapter on three Scandinavian travellers in 19thC Dutch East Indies, and what their accounts can tell us about the porous boundaries of European imperial identities, coming out later this year in a volume edited by Judith E. Bosnak and Rick Honings.

Screenshot of book proofs:
Chapter 9
Tropical Tours, Northern Narratives: Late 19th-Century Scandinavian Travellers in the Dutch East Indies
Mikko Toivanen

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Dec 19

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.

Strategiavisualisointi, kehässä toisiaan seuraten kohdat: "Asiakaskokemus etusijalla" -> "Täysin digitaalinen palvelu" -> "Vaikuttavuutta ulkoisella rahoituksella" -> "Saavutettava ja yhdenvertainen" -> "Tehokkuutta innovaatioiden kautta" -> "Keskitetty julkinen tietovaranto" -> "Kehitymme yhdessä" -> "Uudet mahdollisuudet tutkimukselle. Keskellä todennäköisesti tekoälymallilla toteutettu kuva jonkinlaisesta arkistomaisesta rakennuksesta.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Dec 12

Uusin Nuoren Voiman numero on nyt kaupoissa! Mukana myös tämä esseeni, jossa kirjoitan Atlantin virtausjärjestelmästä, amokjuoksijoista ja järkipuheesta nykypolitiikassa.

Esseeni "AMOC juoksee, lakkaa" Nuori Voima -lehden uusimmassa numerossa.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Dec 11

Shades of this absolute gem from the Hikayat Abdullah (1843):

A description of Stamford Raffles in the Hikayat Abdullah: "His inactivity was not like that of a spade which crumbles away to rust but that of a potato, having the seed of future growth."

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Dec 3

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.

A somewhat waterlogged copy of E.T.A. Hoffmann's Berliner Novellen lying on a tabletop.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Nov 5

Finally got a Bialetti again for the first time since moving away from Italy (which was way too long ago), life is getting better.

A freshly unpacked Bialetti Moka Express on a table.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Oct 29

Another bit of Halloween reading that I was very happy to pick up for 1€ since I've been on the lookout for a while: Gustav Meyrink's The White Dominican (1921). Lots of esoteric transmigration-of-the-soul stuff cobbled up with vague early-20thC European notions of Buddhism.

A slightly beaten-up copy of Gustav Meyrink's Der Weisse Dominikanre on a table.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Oct 21

I thought I'd have a look at my presentation script for next week and, oh, okay, I see Microsoft has decided there will be some changes.

page full of gibberish random symbols where actual text is supposed to be

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Oct 20

The intro to our Itinerario special issue on the entwined histories of tourism and imperialism has just passed 1,000 views! 🥳 Many thanks to all readers, keep spreading the word and remember to check out the great contributions that make up the issue, too. doi.org/10.1017/S016...

Cover of the issue 48:3 of the journal Itinerario, showing a black-and-white photo of a European tourist being pushed/pulled up the side of a pyramid by a group of Egyptian guides.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Oct 16

I'm not too much into Halloween but, for seasonal reading, I did get these additions to my Dylan Dog collection. They're getting increasingly difficult to source now that I don't live in Italy anymore.

Two Dylan Dog comics titled 'Il male' and 'Incubo di una notte di mezza estate', side by side on a table. One cover shows Dylan being attacked by a tentacle sea monster of sorts and the other some Stonehenge cult shenanigans.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Sep 24

"It is my pride and joy to be the shepherd of my country's trees." (The Caribbean Forester, 3:1 (1941))

Picture, in green on yellow, of a tropical forest against a mountainous background. Below, the text of the post as a caption.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Sep 22

Absolutely wild to me that this guy gets a heroic feature in the NY Times when his clearly articulated climate policy throughout has been "let's not do a single thing to reach the previous government's climate targets but just keep them on the books anyway to point at in case anyone asks".

Headline 'The Country with Europe's Most Radical Climate Plan: An interview with Petteri Orpo, prime minister of Finland'

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Sep 2

Andrey Kurkov wrote Death and the Penguin from December 1995 to February 1996, according to the book's postscript. Neon Genesis Evangelion was first broadcast in Japan from October 1995 to March 1996. There is a slight chance that Kurkov was inspired by seeing Pen Pen on early bootleg VHS tapes.

Cover of Andrey Kurkov's Death and the Penguin.

Screenshot of Pen Pen the Penguin from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Sep 2

Author copies have arrived! The book is demonstrably real! Official publication date in about two weeks but I've heard it will already be available at ENIUGH next week. Check out the full info over at: lup.nl/publications...

Three copies of my monograph Empire, Tourism, and Colonial Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka on a table, with a Leiden University Press postcard saying "Congratulations!" on top.

Mikko Toivanen@mtoiv· Aug 27

Summer is the time for ghost stories! And this year I happened upon this collection of Edith Wharton's contributions to the genre. Fun stuff, it's all well-written and enjoyable, but there are two stories that outshine the rest by far, achieving a transcendental kind of horror lacking in the rest.