2.12. Kirjan julkistustilaisuus: Speculative Mimesis in Fantasy Literature: Rethinking Relations Between Fiction and Reality. Elise Kraatila (Bloomsbury)
Narrare järjesteää julkistustilaisuuden FT Elise Kraatilan tuoreelle kirjalle Speculative Mimesis in Fantasy Literature: Rethinking Relations Between Fiction and Reality (Bloomsbury 2026).
Ohjelman sisältyy tekijän alkusanojen lisäksi kommenttipuheenvuorot FT, Dosentti Jyrki Korpualta ja FT, Dosentti Samuli Björniseltä.
Kirja on julkaistu avoimesti, ja sen voi lukea kustantajan Bloomsbury Collections -verkkopalvelussa (avaa linkistä)
Aika: Tiistai 2.12.2025 klo. 16.15.
Paikka: Tampereen yliopiston keskustakampus, Pinni B, B4113.
Tilaisuuden jälkeen tarjolla juomia ja pientä purtavaa.
25.11. Mari Hatavara & Eija Paavilainen: Mitä kaunokirjallisen kokemuksen analysoiminen voi tuoda lasten emotionaalisen kaltoinkohtelun tutkimukseen?
Tutkimuskeskus Narraren monitieteellinen kertomuksentutkimuksen seminaari jatkuu tiistaina 25.11. klo. 16:15.
Tila: Pinni B4113 tai Zoom (Link). (Meeting ID: 668 4700 7494 Passcode: 045076)
Mitä kaunokirjallisen kokemuksen analysoiminen voi tuoda lasten emotionaalisen kaltoinkohtelun tutkimukseen?
Kaunokirjallisuus esittää henkilöhahmojen kokemusta monipuolisesti ja tarjoaa malleja elämästä eri tilanteissa. Erityisesti vaikeiden aiheiden kohdalla kaunokirjallisuus voi toimia resurssina, jonka pohjalta käydä keskustelua ilman haavoittuvassa tilanteessa olevien henkilöiden yksityisyyden rikkomista tai tarkastelun siirtämistä hyvin yleiselle tasolle. Tutkimme lasten emotionaalisen kaltoinkohtelun kuvauksia kotimaisessa nykykirjallisuudessa suhteessa ilmiötä koskevan tutkimuskirjallisuuden löydöksiin. Analysoimme kuutta suomalaista nykyromaania, jotka kuvaavat lapsen emotionaalista kaltoinkohtelua sen kohteen näkökulmasta. Keskitymme erityisesti teosten kohtiin, joissa tulevat esiin lapsen kokemus kaltoinkohtelusta sekä kaltoinkohtelun seuraukset.
Tutkimuksemme osoittaa, että kirjallisuus antaa monipuolisia kuvauksia lasten emotionaalisesta kaltoinkohtelusta. Lasten kokemusta kuvataan useilla eri keinoilla, jolloin lukija joissain tapauksissa saa pääsyn lapsen ajatuksiin kaltoinkohtelun hetkellä, joissain tapauksissa taas saa luettavakseen kertovan minän jälkikäteisen arvion kaltoinkohtelun aiheuttamista tunteista ja seurauksista. Kaunokirjalliset esimerkit voivat sekä täsmentää että laajentaa tutkimuskirjallisuuden käsitystä lasten emotionaalisesta kaltoinkohtelusta. Ne mahdollistavat lapsen kokemuksen tarkastelun tavalla, joka välttää aineiston keräämisen kaltoinkohtelua todellisuudessa kokeneilta.
Kertomuksentutkimuksen seminaari on kaikille avoin, ja sen tavoitteena on herätellä moni- ja poikkitieteistä keskustelua aineistoista, menetelmistä, teorioista ja tutkimuksen tilasta. Seminaarissa keskustellaan meneillään ja aluillaan olevista kertomukseen liittyvistä tutkimuksista. Jokainen kerta sisältää alustuksen (noin 20 min) sekä keskusteluosuuden. Esitelmöijät ovat eri uravaiheissa olevia Tampereen yliopiston tutkijoita.
18.11. Recording: Anna-Kaisa Kuusisto: “Telling Migration Stories”
This talk is a part of the Narrative Studies Seminar
Time: Tuesday 18 November 4:15 pm (EET); Place: Pinni B4113 or Zoom (Link). (Meeting ID: 668 4700 7494 Passcode: 045076)
Telling Migration Stories
My presentation focuses on the stories we tell about migration and migrants. It also presents one particular story of co-authored book: Gilmartin, Jacobsen & Kuusisto (2026, in print). Migration: A Critical Introduction, Wiley. In the book we have utilized different kinds of stories and storytelling in order to understand and write about migration.
Migration: A Critical Introduction examines migration through a geographical lens that foregrounds stories, power, and place. It offers an essential foundation for critically understanding migration’s diverse forms (labour, family, forced, student, and environmental) within and beyond national borders. The book challenges dominant migration narratives by exploring how policies, legal regimes, and socio-political contexts shape both the categorisation of migrants and the conditions of movement. The book adresses why and how stories of migration are told, by whom, and to what ends. We also discuss counter-stories which encourage the development of more just and imaginative migration futures.
The Narrative Studies Seminar is open to all interested persons. The aim of the seminar is to allow for a multi- and interdisciplinary discussion on data, methods, theories, and the state of narrative research. Sessions consist of introductory presentations by researchers from different fields studying narratives at Tampere University (up to 20 min), and general discussion.
7.11. Interdisciplinary autumn seminar for
PhD researchers
Programme
10.00–12.00 Keynotes
12.00–13.15 Lunch
13.15–14.45 Session I
14.45–15.15 Coffee break
15.15–16.15 Session II
16.15–16.30 Break
16.30–17.30 Session III
17.30–20.00 Reception
Location
The seminar takes place in Tampere University’s Päätalo -building (Kalevantie 4)
Keynotes in auditorium D10b
Sessions in rooms A05 and A06
Lunch in Päätalo cafeteria (YO Restaurant)
Evening reception at the History, Philosophy and Literary Studies unit (Pinni B 5068)
GROUP1: BRIAN SCHIFF (Room Päätalo A05)
Chair: Aura Lounasmaa
13.15–14.45 Session I
13.15–13.45 Meeri Siukonen: Intergenerational memories of Stalinist repression and narrative positioning
(Comments: Nanny Jolma)
13.45–14.15 Julie Kidder: Recognition, Refusal, and the Hermeutical Injustices of Multiraciality
(Comments: Aura Lounasmaa)
14.15–14.45 Juulia Niiniranta: Framing Peace in the Everyday. Visual Narratives of Everyday Capturing the
Invisible and Hidden Peace. (Comments: Elise Kraatila)
14.45–15.15 Coffee break
15.15–16.30 Session II
15.15–15.45 Dóra Kocsis: The role of self-justification in conflict narratives of healthcare professionals in
the United States and Hungary. A qualitative approach for cross-cultural comparison (Comments: Hanna
Rautajoki)
15.45–16.15 Smriti Verma: Beyond Authenticity: Affordances of Autofictional Methodology in Contemporary
British Women’s Life-Writing, 2010-2022 (Comments: Maria Mäkelä)
16.15–16.30 Break
16.30–17.30 Session III
16.30–17.00 Jussi Eerola (Tampere) Searching for Three Crowns: Antiquarianism shaping political
narratives in 17th century Sweden (Comments: Samuli Björninen)
17.00–17.30
GROUP 2: SIMONA ZETTERBERG-NIELSEN (Room: Päätalo A06)
Chair: Laura Piippo
13.15–14.45 Session I
13.15–13.45 Eero Suoranta: History not repeating: Narratives of rural China in A Que’s “Farewell,
Doraemon” (Comments: Lieven Ameel)
13.45–14.15 Michela La Grotteria: Tales of Curiosity. Character Construction and Reader Response in
Madeleine de Scudéry’s Novels (Comments: Natalya Bekhta)
14.15–14.45 Nanna Numento: Agency, Role-playing and Worldbuilding within an Interactive Digital
Narrative: A Case Study of the Playable Character ‘The Dark Urge’ in Baldur’s Gate 3 (Comments: Tuomas
Harviainen)
14.45–15.15 Coffee break
15.15–16.30 Session II
15.15–15.45 Vilja Achté: Plushies, Characters From the End of the World (Comments: Laura Piippo)
15.45–16.15 Jasmin Flinkman: “Minäkin itken, vaikken vielä tiedä mitä” Mood as an Affective and
Experiential State in Katja Kettu’s Kätilö (Comments: Reetta Eiranen)
16.15–16.30 Break
16.30–17.30 Session III
16.30–17.00 Nea Pälä: Levels of narrative in translated romances and manuscripts (Comments: Anna
Kuutsa)
17.00–17.30 Ville Hämäläinen: From Fictionality to Hindsight, from Polyphony to Posthumousness
(Comments: Mari Hatavara)
7.11. Open keynotes: Brian Schiff & Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen
Time: Friday 7 November, 10:00–12:00 (Finnish time)
Place: Auditorium D10b, Päätalo -building (Kalevantie 4, 33100)
Keynote speeches for Narrare’s 8th annual Interdisciplinary Autumn Seminar for PhD Researchers. Keynotes are open to everyone.
The event will be streamed. (Click here to join via Zoom Meeting ID: 654 5882 0434 Passcode: 163969)
Abstracts:
Brian Schiff: Conspiracy Narratives
In The Open Society and Its Enemies (Vol. 2), Karl Popper (1945) introduced the concept of “the conspiracy theory of society.” In subsequent decades, conspiracy theories have taken on prominence in discussions of the far right and populist discourse. However, it should be noted that, for Popper, “the conspiracy theory of society” is a minor point in a longer argument on reductionist explanations for social phenomena, particularly those that reduce complex social realities to psychological motives and actions, what he calls psychologism. Popper also briefly points out that real conspiracies rarely succeed and that social actions, in general, frequently produce unintended results. Popper is undoubtedly correct. But, I want to turn the idea around a bit. However misguided they may be, the phenomenon of conspiracy theories in social reality is complex, multifaceted, and deserving of the kind of careful analysis that Popper recommends. In this talk, I ask, how can we better understand the development and function of conspiracy theories? Naturally, I will argue that approaching conspiracy theories with the tools of narrative analysis can provide unique insight into the phenomenon. I analyze two different, but compatible, narrative models, one literary and one drawn from the social media, for understanding conspiracy theories and the production of shared meaning. First, I explore Umberto Eco’s (2011) impressive analysis of the structure and features of conspiracy theories in The Prague Cemetery. Next, I provide a close analysis of a conversation on the French-language Figaro Live’s Point de Vue (a streaming show produced by the right leaning newspaper Le Figaro) that implicates the conspiracy theory of the great replacement. I also discuss some of the resonances of this conversation.
Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen: Fictionality and the Rise of Fiction: Why Fictionality was Always there, but the Novel is Rather Novel
This paper explores the two histories of fictionality and fiction. Recent scholarship has debated whether fictionality is an ancient concept, a medieval invention, a product of the eighteenth-century novel, or if there have been multiple rises of fictionality. Drawing on rhetorical fictionality theory, I argue that fictionality is the result of a fundamental human capacity to imagine and an ability to communicate about the imaginary. Fiction as a genre, on the other hand, is a much more recent invention, emerging only around the eighteenth century. An equally intriguing issue, as that of fictionality’s age, is its development within fictional genres. The history of fictionality did not end with the rise of fiction but continues within fictional genres. In this paper, I argue that the narrative techniques within the early novel bear witness to an evolution of fictionality. In the early novel, authors felt obliged to limit their narrative strategies to those possible in non-fiction, and this constraint gave rise to wonderfully strange narrative techniques: keyhole scenes, inserted stories, and intrusive narrators eager to justify how they knew what they knew. These techniques, and their gradual development, I argue, attest to a gradual evolution of fictionality within the novel. While the capacity for fictionality may be as ancient as humanity, genres of fiction are a much later invention, and the development of overt fictionality within those genres, yet another story.
Speaker Bios:
Brian Schiff is the Esmond Nissim Professor of Psychology at The American University of Paris, and Director of the George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights, and Conflict Prevention.
Schiff is author of A New Narrative for Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2017) and co-edited Life and Narrative: The Risks and Responsibilities of Storying Experience (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is also editor of a special issue of New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, Rereading Personal Narrative and Life Course (Jossey-Bass, 2014), and Situating Qualitative Methods in Psychological Science (Routledge, 2018). He is the 2016 recipient of the Theodore Sarbin Award from the American Psychological Association’s Division 24 (Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology).
Schiff’s current research examines the motivations of perpetrators of mass crimes, the concept of collective memory, and the social impact of atrocity education.
Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen is Associate Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the Faculty of Arts, at Aarhus University, Denmark. She leads a research group on fiction and science in the 18th century, which is based at Aarhus University.
Zetterberg-Nielsen is an editor of the journals 1700-tal and Passage, where she has contributed to publishing a large number of issues. She has published articles about the 18th century novel and fictionality in a historical perspective in journals such as Narrative, Style, Poetics Today, The Living Handbook of Narratology, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory. She has also written or edited books such as Fiktion, Fiktionalitet – i sprog, litteratur og kultur, Fictionality and Literature: Core Concepts Revisited, Middelalderisme i dansk romantisk litteratur, and Litteratur og idéhistorie. She is the recipient of the 2023 Nils Klim Prize from the Holberg Prize secretariat at the University of Bergen.
Much of Zetterberg-Nielsen’s scholarly work has centred around the concept of ‘fictionality’ and its various implications and manifestations.
4.11. Matti Hyvärinen: “Big, grand, and dominant – towards a conceptual history of master & counter-narratives”
This talk is a part of the Narrative Studies Seminar
Time: Tuesday 4 November 4:15 pm (EET); Place: Pinni B4113 or Zoom (Link). (Meeting ID: 668 4700 7494 Passcode: 045076)
Big, grand and totalizing? Toward a conceptual history of master and counter-narratives
The conceptual pair master and counter-narrative was established and stabilized in social research during the 1990s and the early 2000s, most powerfully by the anthology Considering Counter-Narratives (2004) by Michael Bamberg and Molly Andrews. Despite the popularity of the oppositional conceptual pair, the history of the concepts and the setting has remained vague. My talk will discuss this history since Lyotard’s often misunderstood The Postmodern Condition (1984/1977). Lyotard’s term was grand (or meta-) narrative, connecting largeness and cognitive dominance. Craig Owens translated the term as master narrative, replacing largeness by domination. For some postmodernists (Owens, Hutcheon), Lyotard’s theory justifies the rejection of all narratives, forgetting Lyotard’s excitement with “little narratives”. The first theorist combining master and counter-narratives was narratologist David Herman. During the 199s, ‘master’ narrative received such almost-synonyms as official narrative (connecting the term with the institutional level) or metanarrative, which makes the term hierarchically and cognitively imposing. Paradoxically, the quantitative analyses indicates that the terms metanarrative and master narrative are still several times more popular than counter-narrative, making the conceptual pair more than contingent.
The Narrative Studies Seminar is open to all interested persons. The aim of the seminar is to allow for a multi- and interdisciplinary discussion on data, methods, theories, and the state of narrative research. Sessions consist of introductory presentations by researchers from different fields studying narratives at Tampere University (up to 20 min), and general discussion.
7.10. Natalya Bekhta: A short history of Ukrainian utopia: Discussion of a book project
This talk is a part of the Narrative Studies Seminar
Time: Tuesday 7 October 4:15 pm (EEST); Place: Pinni B4113 or Zoom (Link). (Meeting ID: 668 4700 7494 Passcode: 045076)
A short history of Ukrainian utopia: Discussion of a book project
In this session Natalya Bekhta and her co-author Yarko Filevych will present their current book project, a “мальопис / maliopys on a drawn history of Ukrainian utopia. The book will offer the first-ever overview of the utopian tradition in Ukranian culture and, by way of general framing, also present current theoretical conceptions of utopia in a popular form. We’ll also briefly discuss the practical and conceptual challenges (and joys!) of translating the habitually verbal and partial visions of better futures into the concretness of colours and lines that a comic book demands.
The Narrative Studies Seminar is open to all interested persons. The aim of the seminar is to allow for a multi- and interdisciplinary discussion on data, methods, theories, and the state of narrative research. Sessions consist of introductory presentations by researchers from different fields studying narratives at Tampere University (up to 20 min), and general discussion.
Recording: 23.9. Elise Kraatila: Journalistic Future narratives about Finland and NATO
This talk is a part of the Narrative Studies Seminar
Time: Tuesday 23 September 4:15 pm (EEST); Place: Pinni B4113 or Zoom (Link). (Meeting ID: 668 4700 7494 Passcode: 045076)
Journalistic Future narratives about Finland and NATO
After Russia’s war in Ukraine started in February 2022, the security situation in Finland and the atmosphere of the public discourse regarding it changed rapidly. This has given rise to a highly future-oriented media climate preoccupied with dangers and uncertainties, where journalistic texts anticipating possibly impending crises and disasters currently proliferate. These anticipations typically take a narrative form, framing stories about possible futures as epistemic instruments for guiding preparatory action in the present. Finland’s decision to join NATO in Spring 2022, in particular, has been widely narrativized in Finnish media in terms of the nation’s future in a volatile world. This journalistic preoccupation with the dangers and insecurities of the future constitutes an urgent call for a deeper understanding of 1) how contemporary journalism uses narratives as epistemic instruments for producing and communicating future-oriented knowledge, 2) what kind of impact such future-oriented storytelling has on public discourse, and 3) what epistemological and ethical challenges come with telling journalistic stories about the future. This presentation introduces the “Journalistic Future Narratives in and about NATO-era Finland” project (Helsingin Sanomat Foundation, 2025–2027) as an answer to that call.
The Narrative Studies Seminar is open to all interested persons. The aim of the seminar is to allow for a multi- and interdisciplinary discussion on data, methods, theories, and the state of narrative research. Sessions consist of introductory presentations by researchers from different fields studying narratives at Tampere University (up to 20 min), and general discussion.
17.9. Evening with Narrare: Networking, Socialising & Sauna
Kick off the new academic year by meeting (other) scholars working with or interested in narrative research!
Welcome to research centre Narrare’s Networking, Socialising & Sauna evening on Wednesday 17 September 2025 at Majaranta sauna -venue in Hervanta.
Arrive from 4 pm onwards.
Brief welcoming words and introductions at 5 pm. Mingling by the fireplace.
The sauna, for those interested, will be warm from 6 pm onwards. A swimsuit or a towel must be worn while bathing: remember to bring your own swimsuit and towel. Majaranta is located by lake Hervantajärvi so swimming is also possible.
The venue is easily accessible by public transport. There is a 10-minute walk from the final stop (Hervantajärvi) of tram number 3 to the sauna (Salmenkalliontie 70).
There will be light snacks served, but you should bring your own sauna drinks. There is a barbeque available if you want to bring your own sausages or other snacks.
CFP: 7.11. Interdisciplinary Autumn Seminar for PhD Researchers
CFP: NARRARE INTERDISCIPLINARY AUTUMN SEMINAR FOR PhD RESEARCHERS November 7, 2025, Tampere University, Finland
Deadline for proposals: September 12.
Deadline for final seminar papers October 24.
If your PhD project involves studying narrative or if you make use of narrative methods, this announcement is for you. On Friday November 7, 2025, Narrare: Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies at Tampere University hosts its ninth annual seminar for PhD students. The seminar provides a chance to meet PhD researchers from diverse backgrounds who work on or with narrative, but also to participate in Narrare’s ongoing endeavor of developing theories, methods, and analytical tools for the field of interdisciplinary narrative studies.
The seminar papers will be commented on by the senior researchers and professors of the Centre. Additionally, our confirmed visiting scholars commenting on the workshop papers this year are Professor Brian Schiff and Associate Professor Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen.
Proposals: We ask prospective participants to submit a proposal for a paper to be presented at the seminar. The one-page proposal should include: title, research question, target material, method and theoretical framework plus a short description of the issues the author would like the seminar to address when discussing their paper. The language of the proposals and the seminar is English.
Seminar papers & presentations: Those selected to present at the seminar are expected to send in written papers to be discussed. Papers should include an extended version (2 to 3 pages) of the proposal and a representative excerpt (2 to 3 pages) of their target material. In case the original target material is in any other language than English, we ask for you to provide a short sample (for example half-a-page) of the material translated to English. On the day of the seminar, participants are expected to present their papers briefly (max. 5 minutes) before comments and discussion.
The seminar will be held on site at Tampere University in Finland. If there is room in the program, a hybrid panel with some of the PhD participants online can be organized. Please indicate clearly in your application if you can only participate online.
Apply by sending your proposal to Markus Laukkanen (markus.laukkanen@tuni.fi) by September 12. The deadline for the final seminar papers is October 24.
Visiting scholars:
Brian Schiff is the Esmond Nissim Professor of Psychology at The American University of Paris, and Director of the George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights, and Conflict Prevention.
Schiff is author of A New Narrative for Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2017) and co-edited Life and Narrative: The Risks and Responsibilities of Storying Experience (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is also editor of a special issue of New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, Rereading Personal Narrative and Life Course (Jossey-Bass, 2014), and Situating Qualitative Methods in Psychological Science (Routledge, 2018). He is the 2016 recipient of the Theodore Sarbin Award from the American Psychological Association’s Division 24 (Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology).
Schiff’s current research examines the motivations of perpetrators of mass crimes, the concept of collective memory, and the social impact of atrocity education.
Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen is Associate Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the Faculty of Arts, at Aarhus University, Denmark. She leads a research group on fiction and science in the 18th century, which is based at Aarhus University.
Zetterberg-Nielsen is an editor of the journals 1700-tal and Passage, where she has contributed to publishing a large number of issues. She has published articles about the 18th century novel and fictionality in a historical perspective in journals such as Narrative, Style, Poetics Today, The Living Handbook of Narratology, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory. She has also written or edited books such as Fiktion, Fiktionalitet – i sprog, litteratur og kultur, Fictionality and Literature: Core Concepts Revisited, Middelalderisme i dansk romantisk litteratur, and Litteratur og idéhistorie. She is the recipient of the 2023 Nils Klim Prize from the Holberg Prize secretariat at the University of Bergen.
Much of Zetterberg-Nielsen’s scholarly work has centred around the concept of ‘fictionality’ and its various implications and manifestations.
For further information contact: markus.laukkanen@tuni.fi
Please feel free to circulate this message.
18.-19.6. Symposium: Big & Small Stories
International Symposium, June 18-19, 2025.
Tampere University, Linna -building, room K103 (Kalevantie 5, 33100 Tampere, Finland) or Zoom (Link Meeting ID: 641 6856 2117 Passcode: 458666)
Keynotes: Jan Alber, Alex Georgakopoulou, Elise Kraatila, Jarmila Mildorf
Narrative studies have often focused on lengthy accounts of happenings, be it fictional literature (novels) that the classical narratology is based on, or biographical interviews social sciences often analyze. Small stories paradigm was established to broaden the definition of narrative outside of long, teller-led accounts of past events and to shift the focus more on how stories function in interaction from the content of stories told. Small stories research focuses on ways and sites of telling as well as the tellers in the effort to analyze stories in context and their relation to identities. Its aim is to offer tools and modes of analysis for socio-cultural and situational context of stories, the interplay between dominant and counter-narratives as well as the interchange between personal and collective, culturally established stories. (See Georgakopoulou, Giaxoglou & Patron 2023, “Introduction”.)
On the other hand, those stories that narrative studies have traditionally focused on are led to a conventional understanding of “prototypical narrative” as a form geared towards conveying human or human-like experientiality (e. g. Herman 2009). This focus on human-scale accounts and individual subjectivity limits the field’s capacity to grapple with the grander-scale and collective forms of storytelling that various actors engage in to make narrative sense of happenings related to complex systems and wicked problems like climate change, geopolitical crises, and pandemics. Are these kinds of phenomena truly as “unnarratable” as some theorists suggest (Walsh 2018; Raipola 2019), or do they, like the small stories, merely constitute a challenge to classical narrative theory?
The symposium is organized in the context of the project Age of Uncertainty: Speculative Narratives in 21st-century Fiction and Nonfiction (PI Elise Kraatila, Tampere Institute for Advanced Study) in collaboration with Narrare.
Symposium Programme:
Wednesday June 18 (all times are in EEST)
10.15 – 12.00 Keynote session I (Chair: Mari Hatavara)
Elise Kraatila: Big Stories and Grand-scale Systems Thinking in Fiction and Nonfiction (abstract)
Jan Alber: The Political Ramifications of Big Stories (abstract)
12.00 – 13.30 Lunch break
13.30 – 15.15 Keynote Session II (Chair: Mari Hatavara)
Alexandra Georgakopoulou: Reimagining small stories as formatted narratives in the postdigital era (abstract)
Jarmila Mildorf: Telling Difficult Stories: Small Stories and the Limits of Sense-Making (abstract)
15.15 – 15.45 Break
15.45 – 16.45 Panel discussion: Core questions of big and small stories (Chair: Laura Piippo)
Thursday June 19
10.15 – 11.15 Paper session I (Chair: Laura Piippo)
Mari Hatavara: Narrativity in the Parliamentary Talk. How to Interpretate Small (or Big) Stories in Argumentative Language Use?
Markus Laukkanen & Riikka Pirinen: Small Stories about Big Geopolitics in Finnish journalism about NATO
11.15 – 11.30 Break
11.30 – 12.30 Paper session II (Chair: Laura Piippo)
Aura Lounasmaa: Representation, truth and tellability in small stories of forced migration
Anna Kuutsa: Verbalizing Master and Counter Narratives in Fictional Dialogue
Keynotes:
Jan Alber is Professor and Chair of New English and American Literature at JLU Giessen University (Germany) and Past President of the International Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN). He is the author of Narrating the Prison (Cambria Press, 2007) and Unnatural Narrative: Impossible Worlds in Fiction and Drama (University of Nebraska Press, 2016). Alber’s articles have been published in journals such as European Journal of English Studies, Journal of Narrative Theory, Literature Compass, Narrative, Poetics Today, Scientific Study of Literature, Storyworlds, and Style. He is the editor (or co-editor) of 13 edited collections, the most recent one being Pandemic Storytelling (with Deborah de Muijnck and Jessica Jumpertz) (Brill, 2025). The Routledge Companion to Literature and Cognitive Studies (ed. Jan Alber and Ralf Schneider) will be published later this year. Alber is currently working on a UKRI project (funded by AHRC and the German Research Foundation) on post-postmodernist fictions of the digital (PPFDs) with Alice Bell
Alex Georgakopoulou is Professor of Discourse Analysis & Sociolinguistics, King’s College London. She has developed small stories research, a paradigm for the analysis of everyday life storytelling and identities, with a current focus on storytelling as curated communication on social media. She has (co)-authored & edited 18 books of which the latest volume is: Influencer discourse: Affective relations & identities (2024; co-ed. with Pilar Blitvich, John Benjamins). She is currently completing a monograph with Anna De Fina entitled Analyzing narrative online (forthcoming, Routledge). She is the Co-Editor of the Routledge Research in Narrative, Interaction & Discourse Series.
Elise Kraatila is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Tampere Institute for Advanced Study. Her current research project, ‘Age of Uncertainty: Speculative Narratives in Fiction and Nonfiction’ (2023–2025) concerns future-oriented speculation and scenario-building; the previous, one, ‘Global-scale Poetics’ (2022–2023) investigated representations of planetary-scale phenomena in contemporary science fiction; and the next one, ‘Journalistic Future Narratives in and about Nato-era Finland’ (2025–2027) will tackle the role of storytelling in media discourse surrounding Finnish foreign policy since Spring 2022. Kraatila’s research interests and publications have long revolved around speculation as an epistemic and rhetorical property of storytelling and the limits of narrative representation. Her first monograph on these (and other) topics, Speculative Mimesis in Fantasy Literature, will be out from Bloomsbury Academic next Autumn.
Jarmila Mildorf is Professor of English Philology at the University of Paderborn. Her research focuses on life storytelling in oral history and autobiography, second-person narration, dialogue, audionarratology, radio drama, literature and medicine and the medical humanities. She is the author of Storying Domestic Violence: Constructions and Stereotypes of Abuse in the Discourse of General Practitioners (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) and Life Storying in Oral History: Fictional Contamination and Literary Complexity (De Gruyter, 2023), and co-editor of numerous collections and journal special issues, most recently, Narrative and Mental Health: Reimagining Theory and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2023), Word, Sound and Music in Radio Drama (Brill, 2024), Performing Selves in the 21st Century (forthcoming in Partial Answers) and Life Storytelling across Media and Contexts (forthcoming in Narrative Inquiry). Mildorf serves on the editorial boards of the book series Narratives and Mental Health, Jahrbuch Literatur und Medizin and the journals EON and Re:visit.
3.6. Seminar “Ukrainian war discourse: An idea-turned-effect analysis”
3 June 2025 (Tuesday), 14.15-15.45 EET
International seminar on “Ukrainian war discourse: An idea-turned-effect analysis” focused on a narratological and linguistic analysis of discourses and narratives around the current Russian-Ukrainian war. Two guest talks will consider the following topics:
- Key features of the Ukrainian war discourse;
- An idea-turned-effect analysis:
- Explains what outcomes an idea coded in the text is supposed to yield;
- Reveals how ‘the war in ukraine’ concept transforms into effects via morphosyntactic constructions, image schemas, metaphors.
- Variants of the Ukrainian war discourse:
- News variant (English-speaking media); effects: balancing, non-intense war beginning, spatial scaling, temporal scaling, temporal zoom-in;
- Creative variant (Ukrainian book covers, songs, video clips); effects: unlawful deadly invasion, destruction, devastation, their interaction.
Join us on Zoom: Link (Meeting ID: 677 5253 3935 Passcode: 677363)
With guest speakers:
Prof. Dr. Natalya Izotova, Head of Department, English Philology and Philosophy of Language, Kyiv Linguistic University. Specializes in concept studies, stylistics, cognitive narratology.
Prof. Dr. Serhiy Potapenko, English Philology and Philosophy of Language, Kyiv Linguistic University. Specializes in cognitive linguistics, cognitive rhetoric and media linguistics.
The seminar is co-organised in collaboration with Natalya Bekhta and the research project “Utopia and Eastern European Literature after 1989” (Research Council of Finland; project ID 361957).
21.5. Book launch: Narrative Research: Research Methods (Bloomsbury)
Narrare Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies and Association for Narrative Research and Practice (ANRP) invite you to Book launch for Narrative Research: Research Methods (Bloomsbury 2025)
With co-athors Mark Davis, Lars-Christer Hydén, Corinne Squire, Aura Lounasmaa and Molly Andrews and commentator Matti Hyvärinen.
Time: Wednesday May 21, 2025 at 3.30pm Helsinki time (2.30pm CET, 1.30pm UK)
Venue: Tampere University main campus Pinni B4113 or zoom (https://tuni.zoom.us/j/61283549571?pwd=RyHWMPoxsyNjgbpPYbx0qWJOXyKqbU.1)
After the event we invite those present in Tampere to celebrate the publication with light refreshments in Pinni B3071
This is a book launch for Narrative Research. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/narrative-research-9781350319035/, which is the second edition of the book originally entitled What is Narrative Research.
Narrative research has become a catchword in the social sciences today, promising new fields of inquiry and creative solutions to persistent problems. This book brings together ideas about narrative from a variety of contexts across the social sciences and synthesizes understandings of the field. Rather than focusing on theory, it examines how narrative research is conducted and applied. It operates as a practical introductory guide, basic enough for first-time researchers, but also as a window onto the more complex questions and difficulties that all researchers in this area face. The authors guide readers through current debates about how to obtain and analyse narrative data, about the nature of narrative, the place of the researcher, the limits of researcher interpretations, and the significance of narrative work in applied and in broader political contexts.
Copies available for purchase at the venue for €15 (cash or mobilepay)
1.4. Noora Vaakanainen “Appropriating Voices: Narratorial Overtness in Laura Lindstedt’s Oneiron”
This talk is a part of the Narrative Studies Seminar
Time: Tuesday 1 April 3:15 pm (EET); Place: Pinni B4113 or Zoom (Link). (Meeting ID: 668 4700 7494 Passcode: 045076)
Appropriating Voices: Narratorial Overtness in Laura Lindstedt’s Oneiron
The Narrative Studies Seminar is open to all interested persons. The aim of the seminar is to allow for a multi- and interdisciplinary discussion on data, methods, theories, and the state of narrative research. Sessions consist of introductory presentations by researchers from different fields studying narratives at Tampere University (up to 20 min), and general discussion.
11.3. Jukka Jouhki “Länsimaat Ukrainan sodan uutisissa: oksidentalistisen kerronnan tarkastelua”
Tutkimuskeskus Narraren monitieteellinen kertomuksentutkimuksen seminaari jatkuu tiistaina 11.3. klo. 15:15.
Tila: Pinni B4113 tai Zoom (Link). (Meeting ID: 668 4700 7494 Passcode: 045076)
Länsimaat Ukrainan sodan uutisissa: oksidentalistisen kerronnan tarkastelua
Miten ja milloin lännestä tai länsimaista kirjoitetaan? Esitelmässäni käsittelen sitä, millainen kertomuksellinen ilmiö ”länsi” ja länsimaat ovat ja kuinka länsimaista kerrotaan suomalaisessa uutismediassa erityisesti Ukrainan sodan uutisoinnin yhteydessä. Esittelen myös ”oksidentalismia” (occident = länsi) tai länsi-puhetta ja sen kolmea kerronnallista funktiota, jotka olen nimennyt poissulkevaksi, yleistäväksi ja kuvailevaksi oksidentalismiksi. Kertomuksentutkijoiden kritiikki ja ehdotukset aiheeni ja havaintojeni suhteen ovat lämpimästi tervetulleita!
Kertomuksentutkimuksen seminaari on kaikille avoin, ja sen tavoitteena on herätellä moni- ja poikkitieteistä keskustelua aineistoista, menetelmistä, teorioista ja tutkimuksen tilasta. Seminaarissa keskustellaan meneillään ja aluillaan olevista kertomukseen liittyvistä tutkimuksista. Jokainen kerta sisältää alustuksen (noin 20 min) sekä keskusteluosuuden. Esitelmöijät ovat eri uravaiheissa olevia Tampereen yliopiston tutkijoita.
18.2. Nanny Jolma: “Muistelu, fiktionaalisuus ja kerronnallinen asemointi kansanedustajien muistitietohaastatteluissa”
Tutkimuskeskus Narraren monitieteellinen kertomuksentutkimuksen seminaari jatkuu tiistaina 18.2. klo. 15:15.
Tila: Pinni B4113 tai Zoom (Link). (Meeting ID: 668 4700 7494 Passcode: 045076)
Muistelu, fiktionaalisuus ja kerronnallinen asemointi kansanedustajien muistitietohaastatteluissa
Muistaa-verbi on muistitietohaastatteluissa toistuvasti esiintyvä kielen keino. Se toistuu haastattelijan ja haastateltavan vuorovaikutuksessa ja kytkeytyy niin menneen jäsentämiseen, reflektointiin, kuin uuden kertomuksen aloittamiseenkin. Tästä huolimatta muistaa-verbin merkitysten systemaattinen tarkastelu on jäänyt tutkimuksessa huomiotta.
Esitelmä tarkastelee muistaa-verbin käyttöä osana muistelukerronnan keinovarantoa entisten kansanedustajien muistitietohaastatteluissa. Keskiössä on erityisesti muistamisen tai muistamattomuuden sanallistaminen kerronnallisen asemoinnin keinona sekä fiktionaalisuutta hyödyntävissä kerronnallisissa jaksoissa. Analyysin lähtökohtana on kerronnan ja tarinan tasojen erottaminen vuorovaikutuksellisesti rakentuvissa haastattelukertomuksissa. Esitelmässä havainnollistetaan, että toistuvuudessaan arkiselta vaikuttavan muistaa-verbin funktiot eivät muistitietohaastattelussa rajoitu menneisyyden uudelleen tulkinnan ja osallisuuden ilmaisemiseen. Sen sijaan muistaa-verbin avulla kerronnalliseen vuorovaikutukseen tuotetaan runsaasti erilaisia, toistensa kanssa limittäisiä ja ristiriitaisiakin merkityksiä. Esitelmä pohjautuu hiljattain julkaistuun artikkeliin (Jolma & Teräs 12/2024).
Kertomuksentutkimuksen seminaari on kaikille avoin, ja sen tavoitteena on herätellä moni- ja poikkitieteistä keskustelua aineistoista, menetelmistä, teorioista ja tutkimuksen tilasta. Seminaarissa keskustellaan meneillään ja aluillaan olevista kertomukseen liittyvistä tutkimuksista. Jokainen kerta sisältää alustuksen (noin 20 min) sekä keskusteluosuuden. Esitelmöijät ovat eri uravaiheissa olevia Tampereen yliopiston tutkijoita.
1.2. Maria Mäkelä: “Authors of The Story Economy: Narrative and Digital Capital in the 21st-Century Literary Field”
This seminar session has been postponed due to sickness. The new date for Maria Mäkeläs presentation is Feb. 11 at 3:15 pm EET.
This talk is a part of the Narrative Studies Seminar
Time: Tuesday 28 January 11 February 3:15 pm (EET); Place: Pinni B4113 or Zoom (Link). (Meeting ID: 668 4700 7494 Passcode: 045076)
Authors of The Story Economy: Narrative and Digital Capital in the 21st-Century Literary Field
The 21st century story economy, prompting everyone to tell their story, puts a new strain on literary authors. They need to cope in the literary field transformed by digitalisation, in an environment where storytelling is considered a strategy and a business model. Personal stories of transformation and survival constitute narrative capital. Narrative capital is further entangled with digital capital, the ability to make use of, for example, the affordances of social media.
The talk outlines theoretical and methodological foundations for literary research that would combine the study of (1) the loss of autonomy of the 21st-century literary field (cf. Bourdieu 1992) and (2) the narrative ethos of contemporary authors as storytellers who need to naviagate rhetorically and ethically between different storytelling platforms, from social media and personal interviews to literary fiction. The suggested approach draws from both the sociology of literature and the rhetorical theory of narrative. The talk also serves as an introduction to the newly launched research project Authors of the Story Economy: Narrative and Digital Capital in the 21st-Century Literary Field (AUTOSTORY, Research Council of Finland 2024–2028, consortium PI Mäkelä).
The Narrative Studies Seminar is open to all interested persons. The aim of the seminar is to allow for a multi- and interdisciplinary discussion on data, methods, theories, and the state of narrative research. Sessions consist of introductory presentations by researchers from different fields studying narratives at Tampere University (up to 20 min), and general discussion.
3.2. Guest lecture: “Entering Through the Right Ear: Narrative and the Mind” by Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar
Monday 3 February at 14-16
Tampere University, City centre campus, Linna -building, Room K103 and Zoom (Link)
Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar, University of Groningen
Entering Through the Right Ear: Narrative and the Mind
What do we talk about when we talk about narrative? What do we talk about when we talk about (the) mind? In this lecture, I will propose working definitions of both terms, and attempt to open up the worlds of knowledge within which academic and folk debates around the nexus of narrative and the mind are embedded. My hypothesis will be that while our minds are predisposed to storify experience, the mind itself is also fundamentally storified. Therefore, we need, alongside our narrative competency – i.e. the ability to storify our life experiences – a narrative literacy: the capacity to critically reflect on how our mind creates stories, and stories create our mind. I will finish my lecture with discussing the relevance of my findings for applied narratology: how can they inform the bringing together of theories of narrative and storytelling practices?
Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar is co-founder and one of the academic directors of the Netherlands Winter School on Narrative. He has worked with narrative in a variety of capacities, both as an academic at universities in Tunisia and the Netherlands, and as a freelance organizational consultant. Currently he is a senior lecturer for the Arts, Cognition and Criticism programme at the University of Groningen. He is actively involved in and publishes about the establishment of applied narratology: a bridge between theory and practices of narrative. Recent work includes Narrative Values, the Value of Narratives (De Gruyter 2024, co-edited with Barend van Heusden), a special issue on applied narratology in the journal Narrative Inquiry (2024, co-edited with Laura Karttunen and Anna Ovaska), and an upcoming special issue on the same topic in Narrative (2026, co-edited with Genevieve Liveley and Andrea Macrae).
3.2. Applied Narratology and Political Counter-Narratives
Monday February 3, 12.15-13.45, Pinni B4113 and on Zoom (link).
Welcome to a seminar celebrating the recent publication of two special issues in the field of narrative studies!
Program
Chair: Anna Ovaska (Tampere University)
12.15 Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar (University of Groningen)
Applied Narratology: Feedback Loop Between Theory and Practice
12.30 Laura Karttunen (Tampere University)
What is Applied Narratology? Examples from the Field of Medical Humanities (Introducing the special issue “Applied Narratology”)
12.45 Discussion
12.55 Hanna Rautajoki (Tampere University)
Master/counter positioning as an argumentative resource in political persuasion
13.10 Samuli Björninen (University of Turku)
Considering Political Counter-Narratives: Introducing the Special Issue
13.25 Discussion
Special issue “Applied Narratology”. Ed. Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar, Laura Karttunen & Anna Ovaska. Narrative Inquiry 24:2, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.34.2
Special Issue “Considering Political Counter-Narratives.” Ed. Matti Hyvärinen & Samuli Björninen. Narrative Works 13:1, 2024. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/NW/issue/view/2362
The seminar is organized by Narrare and the research projects Words for Care: Literature, Healthcare and Democracy; Political Temporalities; Authors of the Story Economy: Narrative and Digital Capital in the 21st-Century Literary Field; Arts, Narrative and Cognition theme group (Groningen).
29.1. Cross-disciplinary approaches to restorative Narratives
Time: Wednesday 29 January 3.00-4.30pm EET (2.00-3.30pm CET)
Location: Tampere University, Pinni B4113 and Zoom https://tuni.zoom.us/j/65559957984?pwd=bdTGUeian7MEG8WzlhdpsGlstLbJv7.1
Do narratives have restorative power? If so, what kind of narratives have this power, and how do we identify them? In this seminar we discuss possible analytical approaches to identifying and understanding restorative narratives in different disciplinary and methodological traditions and discuss the possibilities and limits of interdisciplinary methodologies in understanding restorative narratives.
Programme
3.00-4.10 (EET) presentations:
- Silvia Pierosara, University of Macerata: Restorative Narratives, introduction
- Veronica Guardabassi: Collaborative Writing and Inclusion
- Mari Hatavara: The possibilities for distant reading of political narratives in big data
- Jari Stenvall and Sanni Pöntinen: Economic and Social Value, Learning and Narratives in Policy-making: the case of cultural policy in the Covid-19 period in Finland
- Saija Isomaa: Romance as a path to normalcy in young adult dystopias
- Aura Lounasmaa: collective story-telling with refugees as restorative practice
- Lieven Ameel: Redemptive Plots for Post-Industrial Cities
- Laura Piippo and Hanna-Riikka Roine: Antivirality and Digital Restorative Narratives
- Sanna Turoma: Restorative nostalgia in Russian exilic narratives
4.10-4.30 (EET) discussion