In recent years I have studied literary contexts, the relation between mimesis (literary representation) and genre, especially in realist fiction and science fiction, imagination in literature, literary studies and teaching, plotless novels, the linguistic turns in the humanities, addressivity and hypothetical expressions in poetry, the relation between rhetorical figures and narratives, as well as various manifestations of unreliability in fiction.

In doing so I have discussed various authors, such as Nicholson Baker, William Blake, Bo Carpelan, Kate Chopin, Junot Díaz, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Stanisław Lem, Magnus Mills, Edgar Allan Poe and H. G. Wells. Currently I am working on how literary worlds are shaped, that is, what themes and techniques they have used through the ages.

My research includes American literature (The World According to Kurt Vonnegut. Moral Paradox and Narrative Form, 1994), the relation between cognition and literary interpretation (Cognition and Literary Interpretation in Practice, ed. with Harri Veivo and Merja Polvinen, 2005) and how identity comes across in narratives (Narrative and Identity. Theoretical Approaches and Critical Analyses, ed. with Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning, 2008). I have also co-edited the selected works of Johan Ludvig Runeberg, the Finnish national poet (JLR. Johan Ludvig Runeberg i urval, chair of editorial board, 2004).

For other and recent publications see the University of Helsinki database Tuhat