Researcher

I am currently working on my PhD in Folklore Studies at the University of Helsinki, where I started in 2020. My monograph entitled Jumalan sanat ja Kristuksen kädet. 1800-luvun ilomantsilaiset parannusloitsut antropopoeettisena prosessina [God’s Words and Christ’s Hands. Healing Incantations from 19th-Century Ilomantsi as an Anthropopoetic Process] deals with the corporeality of healing incantations. I focus especially on the linguistic means the charmer uses to construct human bodies during the healing performance. My aim is to understand how words and bodies intertwine to make the healing possible.

As a researcher, I am interested in performance and corporeality, poetics and the power of the word, posthumanism and new materialism, as well as the contemporary rewriting of mythology and the history of folklore studies and anthropology.

Read about my research in this interview with the University of Helsinki.

You can have a look at my education, the list of my publications and of my conference presentations.