Areas of expertise
Research field: history
- Experience, emotions and memory in the humanities
- Trauma theory and cultural trauma
- History of nationalism and experiencing the nation
- Social and cultural history of the Second World War and its aftermath
- Gender history, especially war and masculinity in the 20th century
- History of psychiatry, psychology and mental health
- Dreams and nightmares
I’m a social and cultural historian and the director of the interdisciplinary research department of the Finnish Literature Society. I’m also leading the Research Council of Finland Centre of Excellence in Nationalism Research in the Humanities (NARS).
I have specialised in the history of the Second World War and the war’s individual, cultural and societal consequences. Theoretically and methodologically, I have focused on experience, emotions, memory, trauma and gender as intertwined phenomena. Previously, in 2018–23, I have led the “Lived Nation” research team at the Research Council of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences; as a nationalism scholar, I am especially interested in the history of feeling and experiencing the nation and in the post-Second World War nationalism. I wrote my PhD thesis (2013) on the Finnish soldiers’ traumatic war experiences and military psychiatry. From this basis, I have studied the histories of psychiatry, psychology and mental health. Lately, I have been conducting research on the memory of war in post-war dreams and movies. Besides working as the research director of the Finnish Literature Society, in 2023–27, I am leading the Research Council of Finland research project “Unequal War: Vulnerability, Stress and Survival in the Finnish Army during World War II” at Tampere University.
Monographs and edited books
Ville Kivimäki & Tanja Vahtikari, eds, Eurooppalainen kaupunkikohtalo: Viipuri toisessa maailmansodassa. Helsinki: Viipurin Suomalainen Kirjallisuusseura, 2023.
Ville Kivimäki & Peter Leese, eds, Trauma, Experience and Narrative in Europe after World War II. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
Ville Kivimäki, Sami Suodenjoki & Tanja Vahtikari, eds,Lived Nation as the History of Experiences and Emotions in Finland, 1800–2000. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69882-9).
Johanna Annola, Ville Kivimäki & Antti Malinen, eds, Eletty historia: Kokemus näkökulmana menneisyyteen. Tampere: Vastapaino, 2019.
Ville Kivimäki & Petri Karonen, eds, Continued Violence and Troublesome Pasts: Post-war Europe between the Victors after the Second World War. Helsinki: SKS, 2017.
Ville Kivimäki & Anssi Männistö, Sodan särkemä arki. Helsinki: WSOY, 2016.
Ville Kivimäki & Kirsi-Maria Hytönen, eds, Rauhaton rauha: Suomalaiset ja sodan päättyminen 1944–1950. Tampere: Vastapaino, 2015.
Ville Kivimäki, Murtuneet mielet: Taistelu suomalaissotilaiden hermoista 1939–1945. Helsinki: WSOY, 2013. Estonian (2016) and Swedish (2023) translations.
Ville Kivimäki, Battled Nerves: Finnish Soldiers’ War Experience, Trauma, and Military Psychiatry, 1941–44. PhD thesis in Nordic history: Åbo Akademi University, 2013.
Tiina Kinnunen & Ville Kivimäki, eds, Finland in World War II: History, Memory, Interpretations. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
Tiina Kinnunen & Ville Kivimäki, eds, Ihminen sodassa: Suomalaisten kokemuksia talvi- ja jatkosodasta. Helsinki: Minerva, 2006.
