Description of research and teaching

Research interests

- Sufi literature, especially poetry and hagiography

- Persian and Urdu poetry and aesthetics

- Sufi practice and ritual in South Asia

- Cognitive poetics

Teaching (University of Helsinki 2007-)

- Hindi on all levels from introductory to advanced

- Urdu on all levels from introductory to advanced

- Persian on introductory and intermediate level

- Sanskrit texts

- Sufism

- Persian literature

- Urdu literature

- Islamic intellectual history

Curriculum vitae

Mikko Autere (formerly Viitamäki) works as University Lecturer in South Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki. He received the PhD degree at the University of Helsinki in 2015 majoring in Arabic and Islamic studies. In his dissertation, he studied the relationship of a poetic text and musical performance in the context of Sufi religious practice in Delhi and Hyderabad.

At present, Dr. Autere teaches Hindi, Urdu and Persian as well as courses on South Asian and Persian literature and culture. His teaching and research interests cover topics such as politics of language in South Asia and Iran, aesthetics, history and performance contexts of Persian and Urdu poetry, Islamic reform and Islamic debates in South Asia. He is also working on a translation of an anthology of Persian poetry into Finnish.