Kaiju Harinen
 PhD, Postdoctoral researcher

Comparative Literature / SELMA

kaiju.harinen@utu.fi



OfficeA327


ORCID identifierhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-2241-5197





Areas of expertise
African francophone literatures; coloniality; exotism; feminisms; intersectionality; storytelling; discourse analysis applied to literature, post- and decolonial studies.


Biography

I received my PhD in French from the University of Turku in October 2018, with a thesis on francophone literature, intersectionality and performativity in the semiautobiographical writings of the West African authors Calixthe Beyala and Ken Bugul.

After obtaining my doctorate, I have been working as a university teacher and a part-time teacher at the French departments of the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University and at the University of Helsinki. I have also been teaching French at the Language Centre of the University of Helsinki and Helsinki Summer University. 

I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of French in a project entitled INTERACT - Intersectional Reading, Social Justice, and Literary Activism funded by Kone Foundation. The project is also based at the Department of Comparative Literature and SELMA (Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory).

Beside academic writing, I write autofiction and fictional short stories. I am also volunteering at different antiracist organizations. I do yoga and enjoy movies, theatre and art exhibitions.



Research

My thesis studies francophone women’s literature, intersectionality and performativity in the semiautobiographical writings of the West African authors Calixthe Beyala and Ken Bugul. My post-doctoral research is about contemporary feminist storytelling, intersectional reading, social justice and literary activism. My aim is to make intersectionality a practical tool against discrimination in the context of Finland.



Teaching

I have been working at the university from 2009 (part- or full-time). My teaching experience is quite various: I have been teaching for instance French grammar, discourse analysis, phonetics, translation (French-Finnish), and literatures (French and Francophone literature). In the future, my teaching will be embedded in the anti-racist and anti-discriminatory workshops based on focus group discussions, participative teaching and creative writing.



Publications


Last updated on 2024-04-01 at 23:28