Curriculum vitae

ORCID https://orcid.org/0009-0004-6462-5285

Research 

Current research project 

The Language of War: Historical Analogies in Ukraine’s Resistance to the Russian Aggression

Past research projects

Principal Investigator of the research project Coming to Terms with the Stalinist/Communist Past: What Citizens Think in Georgia, Russia and Ukraine funded by the Academy of Finland (2014-2017).

Researcher in the project Cultural Statecraft in International Relations: The Case of Russia funded by the Academy of Finland (2016-2021) at Tampere University and led by Prof. Tuomas Forsberg.

Researcher in the project Reconstructing Memory in the City: Transnational and Local (European) Sites of Memory funded by the Balzan Prize (2018-2020) at the University of Konstanz, Germany, and led by Prof. Aleida Assmann and Prof. Jan Assmann.

My research on international politics is situated at the intersection of International Relations, History, Sociology, and Linguistics. I am interested in studying the international politics of memory, political language and foreign policy, interpretive research methodology and methods in political science, and teaching and learning politics.

Teaching

Current teaching

Uses of the Past in Foreign Policy

Political Language and International Politics

I enjoy teaching undergraduate and graduate courses within my research areas and developing new techniques of student-centered teaching and learning. 

I have taught at Tampere University, the University of Eastern Finland, the University of Helsinki, and the University of Vienna, Austria. My teaching philosophy is outlined in my peer-reviewed article entitled Involve me, and I will understand: How to Engage Students in Political Science Classes (Austrian Journal of Political Science, vol. 3, pp. 293–304, 2014). The article is based on the constructivist understanding of teaching and learning, where the focus is moved from a teacher-oriented to a student-oriented learning approach. Under this framework, the teacher is considered no longer an authoritative source but acts as a mentor who supports students’ deep learning. The student’s role accordingly changes from a passive listener to an active constructor of knowledge. 

To develop my teaching skills, I participated in the ECPR Summer School on Teaching and Learning Political Science in July 2012 in Piestany, Slovakia.

Visiting research and teaching fellowships

• Leibniz Institute for the History & Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), Germany
• Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Canada
• Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, University of Uppsala, Sweden
• Centre for Research and Study in Sociology, Lisbon University Institute, Portugal
• Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbooks Research, Germany
• Centre for the Study of Political Change, University of Siena, Italy
• Department of History, Tbilisi State University, Georgia
• Centre for EU-Russia Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia

ECPR training in research methodology and methods 

• Writing Ethnographic Research
• Issues in Ethnography
• Focus Groups
• Advanced Qualitative Analysis
• Nvivo
• Expert Interviews
• Discourse Analysis
• Content Analysis
• Analyzing Political Language