Description of research and teaching

Kasper Braskén is Academy Research Fellow in Political History at the University of Helsinki. He is the Principal Investigator of the research project “Locating Global Protest against the Extreme Right: Anti-Fascism, Anti-Racism and Internationalism in Multiethnic Metropoles” (LGP) funded by the Research Council of Finland (Project number 355478; 2023–27). The LGP-project includes a team of two postdocs: Moshumee Dewoo and Shane Little. As a part of the project we co-edit The Helsinki Notebooks: Global Dispatches against Fascism and the Far Right.

In my research I have specialised in 20th century history with a main focus on transnational and global history, left internationalism, international communism, ethnic minorities, memory studies, and anti-fascist movements in European and global contexts. I am a founding member of the Anti-Fascism Studies Network: History, Culture & Memory (AFSN)

In 2014 I defended my PhD in general history. The study was based on extensive archival research in Moscow and Berlin and examines the concept of transnational solidarity in the international communist movement. It was published as The International Workers’ Relief, Communism, and Transnational Solidarity: Willi Münzenberg in Weimar Germany (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

My postdoctoral research has been concerned with the critical study of transnational and global anti-fascism. First, my research was funded by the Kone Foundation for the project "The Origins of ‘Anti-Fascism’: Transnational Movements against Nazism, Fascism and the ‘White Terror’ in Europe, 1923–1939” (2014–16: 36 months). I then received funding from the Academy of Finland (now: Research Council of Finland) for the project "Towards a Global History of Anti-Fascism: Transnational Civil Society Activism, International Organisations and Identity Politics Beyond Borders, 1922–1945” (2017–20: 36 months); Thereafter, I was a part of the research project “Finland-Swedish Anti-Fascism, 1920s–1950s” funded by the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland (2020–22). Finally, I received further funding for my research on the global history of anti-fascism from Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, before starting with my current project in September 2023.

International academic mobility has been a vital part of my academic career. I have been multiple times visiting scholar at Freie Universität Berlin (3 years in total). I have completed additional mobility periods at Royal Holloway University of London, University of Cape Town, Queen Mary University of London, and The New School for Social Research, New York City. 

Collaborative research efforts have resulted in the following edited volumes & special issues that I have co-edited:

Global History From Below: Local Contexts, Encounters and Exchanges in the Modern Era (De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2027)

Anti-Fascism and Ethnic Minorities: History and Memory in Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge, 2024)

Special issue: "Anti-fascist resistance fighters, intersectionality and memory", Twentieth Century Communism 25, 2023

Special Issue: South African Historical Journal: Anti-Fascism in Southern Africa, vol. 74 (1) 2022. 

Anti-Fascism in a Global Perspective: Transnational Networks, Exile Communities, and Radical Internationalism (Routledge, 2021)

Anti-Fascism in the Nordic Countries: New Perspectives, Comparisons and Transnational Connections (Routledge, 2019)

I welcome peer-review inquiries. I have previously reviewed research articles for the journals Global Networks (Wiley), Contemporary European History (Cambridge UP), South African Historical Journal (Taylor & Francis), Scandinavian Journal of History (Taylor & Francis), Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies (Brill), Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography (Taylor & Francis),  History: The Journal of the Historical Association (Wiley), Twentieth Century Communism (Lawrence & Wishart), Journal of Transnational American Studies (University of California Digital Library), Esboços: histórias em contextos globais (Brazil), Irish Studies Review (Taylor & Francis), Journal of Women's History (Johns Hopkins University Press).

My book reviews have been published in such journals as American Historical Review, European History Quarterly, History: The Journal of the Historical Association, Twentieth Century Communism, Connections, Historisk Tidskrift för Finland, Finsk Tidskrift, International Newsletter of Communist Studies, and H-Net (H-Socialisms).

Since 2024 I am (together with Margarite Poulos) chief editor of Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history

Teaching and Supervision

I am currently co-supervisor to three PhD-students who are investigating topics related to fascism and anti-fascism. I welcome proposals related to my fields of interest.

My teaching has focused on 20th Century global and transnational history, social movements, the history of genocide and the Holocaust, fascism and anti-fascism.