Areas of expertise
Biography
I am a senior lecturer of comparative literature at the University of Turku. I studied comparative literature, cultural history, the Finnish language, teacher education and musicology for my MA degree and obtained my Phil. Lic. degree in 2002 and PhD in 2007 in comparative literature at the University of Turku. I did part of my doctoral candidate studies at the University of Warwick and at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Between 2010 and 2011, I served as a visiting scholar at the University of Worcester (with a grant provided by the Academy of Finland). Between 2018 and 2020, I will serve as the principal investigator of the “How to Read? Forms of Reading in Teaching Literature in the Upper Secondary School” project, which is funded by the Kone Foundation.
Teaching
I am responsible for several undergraduate courses, such as the lecture courses “Introduction to Literary Studies” and “Literary History” and Prose and Drama Analysis. I also teach and supervise Bachelor’s and Master’s theses as well as doctoral dissertations. I have served as an Erasmus exchange teacher at the University of La Sapienza, Rome, and at the University of Worcester. I have co-written several textbooks for both Finnish upper secondary schools (Jukola, kurssit 5 ja 6. [Jukola, textbook for Finnish language and literature] with Elias Heikkonen, Marja Hakalin and Olli Sulopuisto, published by Sanoma Pro 2017, 2018) and undergraduate students (Johdatus kirjallisuusanalyysiin [Introduction to Literary Analysis] with Liisa Steinby, published by SKS 2013).
Research
Currently, my research focuses on how literature is taught in classrooms. I am leading a project that studies the theories and practicalities of how literature is taught and read at schools. The focus of the project is on past and present methods of how prose fiction, poetry and drama are taught in Finnish upper secondary schools, and our research group is particularly interested in how affects, intersectionality and contextual aspects could be integrated into the teaching of literature. Previously, I have studied time-related phenomena in novels and eighteenth-century English literature. My monograph deals with the concept of time in Daniel Defoe’s novels. In addition to Defoe, I have also written articles that focus on novels written by Ian McEwan, Wladimir Kaminer, Aphra Behn and Per Petterson.