Niko Heikkilä profile picture
Niko
Heikkilä
History and Archaelogy
Postdoctoral Researcher, John Morton Center
PhD

Contact

Arcanuminkuja 1
20500
Turku

Areas of expertise

U.S. history
social movements
activism
social conflict
social change
cultural meanings
repression

Biography

I currently work as a postdoctoral researcher at the JMC in the Research Council of Finland-funded “Reproduction Wars: Imaginaries and Mobilizations in the U.S.-Mexico Transborder Region” (REPRO) project. In the project, I examine the policing of women’s reproduction in Texas, focusing on how anti-abortion organizations mobilize people to surveil abortion seekers and providers. My doctoral dissertation examined the Klan, the Black Panther Party, and the FBI's counterintelligence from 1964 to 1971. I have previously also worked as a research assistant at the John Morton Center for North American Studies in an interdisciplinary research project, "U.S. Election Year 2016," during Spring 2016. 

I was a coeditor of the edited collection on the methods of cultural history Kulttuurihistorian tutkimus: Lähteistä menetelmiin ja tulkintaan (2022).  

Together with Maarit Leskelä-Kärki and Marika Ahonen, I was also a coeditor of the book Toivon ja raivon vuosi 1968 (2019). I have published articles in journals such as the European Journal of American Studies and American Studies in Scandinavia.

In 2019-2020, I was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Fulbright visiting researcher in the department of American Studies.  

Teaching

In 2018–2019, I was a co-teacher of an MA-level theme seminar about popular culture.

In Fall 2017, I taught the course "Social Movements and Culture during the 20th Century" for undergraduate students. 

I was a teaching assistant in an undergraduate course, "2016 U.S. Presidential Election," at the Faculty of Social Sciences in the fall of 2016.

Research

My research has focused on social movements in the U.S., with a particular focus on both reactionary and revolutionary mobilizations of the 1960s and 1970s. I am also interested in issues of social control and repression, the dynamics of social change and reaction, and the interaction between politics and (popular) culture.

Publications

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Q (2021)

Suomi-USA (jatkuu nimellä SAM Magazine)
Heikkilä Niko
(Yleistajuinen artikkeli tai blogikirjoitus (E1))