Acknowledgements

A fellow thesis-wrangler is preparing to submit his thesis tomorrow, so we've been comparing notes on submission processes, forms, acknowledgements etc. It occurred to me that while I had intended to post my acknowledgements here once I submitted, I never got around to it. So here we go, a little bit late in the piece:

I would like to thank my supervisors Associate Professor Kati Tonkin, Professor Rob Stuart and Professor Peter Morgan for their advice and support over the years. I also thank them and Dr Caroline Finander for allowing me to inflict Finnish cinema and the Eurovision Song Contest on impressionable undergraduates.

My research was funded by an Australian Postgraduate Award and the UWA top-up scholarship. I received additional research travel funding from Convocation, the Postgraduate Students’ Association, the School of Humanities and the Graduate Research School, and for these I remain grateful.

I thank the organisers and attendees of the 2008 Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand conference in Dunedin and the Cultural Representations of the Cold War conference in Osnabrück for feedback, friendship and publication opportunities.

I am also grateful to the staff at the Finnish National Audiovisual Archives library and the UWA Reid library for their assistance. I am particularly indebted to the Document Delivery team at the Reid: over the past few years I have certainly made them earn their keep. A number of other organisations and individuals have helped me source specific images and details along the way, and I have thanked them separately at appropriate points in the thesis proper.

In the course of my research I have been lucky enough to make friends and share many, many cups of coffee with an assortment of exceedingly interesting people. My research experience would have been much less enjoyable without the support and whimsy of my fellow travellers in European Languages and Studies, the Limina editorial collective, my Teaching Internship cohort, the Writers’ Liberation Front (or was it the Liberation Front of Writers?), the Skirt Party ladies and my co-residents of that small windowless office on the first floor of the Arts building. Brooke, Danica and Laurie went beyond the call of duty in assisting with the final proofreading process, and I thank them for their generosity. 

I am grateful to my parents for sending me useful press clippings, books and photocopies and for scouting out relevant radio and television programs in Finland. My siblings Maria and Antti deserve a special mention for their fieldwork in the pubs of Helsinki. Ritva-tätille erikoiskiitos majoituksesta.

Finally, I thank Ben and Sebastian for providing both distraction and perspective.