In Raitt Hall, Room 314

The Greatest Finn in Foucault’s Cycle: Troublesome Sexuality and The Butterfly of the Urals presented by SANNA KARKULEHTOUNIVERSITY OF OULU / RICE UNIVERSITY

This paper examines the case of the ‘Gay Marshal’, the late Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim, president of Finland, supreme commander of Finnish military forces during World War Two, and often voted the ‘Greatest Finn’ in polls. Karkulehto explores the reception of the puppet-animation film Butterfly of the Urals, in which Mannerheim wears a purple corset and enjoys a relationship with a male servant. The film incited a media war. Drawing on her forthcoming book, The Foucault Cycle and the Media Market of Sex, Karkulehto shows how the films reception involves Foucault’s Cycle: while sexuality fascinates and attracts large audiences, it is both present and absent in the media, viable only under certain conditions, rules, and restrictions.

Sanna Karkulehto is University Lecturer of Literature at the University of Oulu. She is currently a visiting scholar at Rice University in The Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality.