Kaiju Harinen
 yliopisto-opettaja / University Teacher at the department of French

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, antiracist reading groups.


Research community or research topic
Member of the research project INTERACT / In the Shadow of Polycrisis. The Lived Experience of Young People in Societies of Intersecting Crises.

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 a member of the research project titled INTERACT - Intersectional Reading, Social Justice, and Literary Activism, funded by Kone Foundation (2022-2025): https://sites.utu.fi/interact/ ant the research project titled In the Shadow of Polycrisis. The Lived Experience of Young People in Societies of Intersecting Crises,
funded by Kone Foundation.

I currently work as a University Teacher at the department of French (1.1.-31-5-2025) at the University of Turku.

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
  
Go to first page
  
Go to previous page
  
1 of 2
  
Go to next page
  
Go to last page
  


Last updated on 2025-28-01 at 20:21