My work history includes
positions in three different Finnish universities. I worked as a University Assistant
and Senior University Assistant of Comparative Literature at the University of
Tampere between 2002 and 2012, and after that as a Senior University Lecturer
of Literature at the University of Eastern Finland from 2012 onwards. I also
served as an Acting Professor of Literature at the University of Eastern
Finland for the academic year 2016–2017. I held the position of Acting Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku for the academic year 2018–2019. Beginning from May 2020, I have been Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku. I completed my PhD in Comparative Literature
at the University of Tampere in 2005 and was granted the title of Docent
(Adjunct Professor) of Comparative Literature at the University of Tampere in
2008. During my postdoctoral research period, I served as a visiting scholar
under the auspices of Project Narrative at Ohio State University in the US in
2011.

The topic of my doctoral dissertation was the poetics and rhetoric of
American nonfictional narrative. In addition to American literature, my
research interests have since focused on narratology and the rhetorical theory
of narrative, ecocriticism or environmental literary studies, visual culture
and film, and partly on the contemporary Finnish novel. My research projects
include “Natural Narratology, Cognitive Poetics, and Ecocriticism” (2009–2011),
a postdoctoral research project funded by the Academy of Finland, and “The
Changing Environment of the North: Cultural Representations and Uses of Water”
(2017–2021), a consortium funded by the Academy of Finland, in which I serve as
Principal Investigator.

https://sites.utu.fi/aqua-cen/en/

My works-in-progress and forthcoming publications focus
on the visual representations of the North and the Arctic in literature and
other forms of art, the methodological cross-pollination of narratology and
ecocriticism, and the rhetoric of narrative in the contemporary novel.

My teaching responsibilities include advanced theoretical studies, the Master’s
thesis seminar, and the supervision of MA theses and doctoral dissertations. I
also teach special courses based on my ongoing research, such as environmental
literary studies and the rhetorical theory of narrative. The texts discussed in
these courses consist mainly of Anglo-American literature and literary theory.