As affiliate of Tampere University, I work as the Principal Investigator of a project Imagine, democracy! Narrative fiction as a tool for imagining democracy in Finland (funded by the Kone Foundation, 2023-2027) at Narrare: Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies at Tampere University, Finland. My main affiliation is currently University of Bergen, where I work as an Associate Professor in Digital Culture and an affiliate of Center for Digital Narrative (CDN).

The project Imagine, democracy! asks how and what kind of democracy is imagined in narrative fiction written and read in Finland. In the project, we examine the ways in which narrative fiction makes use of and perhaps reforms, reinforces, or erodes different forms of imagination central to democracy. As a result, we will produce an analytical and critical conception of how and on which terms narrative fiction can support imagination that bolsters democracy.

My previous postdoctoral research project Drawing the Possible into the Present: Entanglements of Human and Computer in Speculation (CO-SPEC, Academy of Finland. 2020-2023) focused on providing us with tools to recognise and analyse the ways in which our entanglement with computational media affects, guides and shapes our engagement with the possible. CO-SPEC investigated simultaneously 1) the ways in which digital technologies have become entangled with our imaginations, and 2) a variety of works of fiction that illustrate, make use of and challenge this entanglement.

My doctoral thesis (University of Tampere, 2016) addressed worldbuilding as one of the most fundamental rhetorical and communicative practices of contemporary speculative fiction, gaining a strong boost from the rise of digital media.

The areas of my expertise include speculative fiction, narrative theory, digital media, theories of worldbuilding and imagination, and game studies (especially narratives in games).