Antti Ahmala

Information om forskning och undervisning

Research

My postdoctoral research (2017->) has examined antimodern thought and sensibility in literature with a focus on Finnish essayists. I currently work as a grant-funded researcher and study the antimodern in Finnish fiction of the fin de siècle. I have previously worked in 2023-2025 as a postdoctoral research fellow in the project Culture-Specific Emotions and Literature. Conceptual Modelling and New Methods, funded by the Research Council of Finland, and studied culture-specific emotions in literature published shortly after the Finnish Civil War. I have also worked as a member in the project Arctic Hysteria: Strange Northern Emotions, funded by the Kone Foundation (2020-2022), and the project Loneliness and Nostalgic Communities (piloting funding granted 2022 by the Niilo Helander Foundation).

Doctoral dissertation: Miten tulla sellaiseksi kuin on? Autenttisuus ja itsestä vieraantuminen Joel Lehtosen varhaistuotannossa [How to Become What One Is? Authenticity and Self-Alienation in Joel Lehtonen's early works] (2016).

A review of the dissertation in Finnish: https://journal.fi/joutsen-svanen/article/view/76525

Main areas of interest: fin de siècle, decadence, modernity and antimodernism, the essay and especially contemporary Finnish essayists, the study of emotions and culture-specific emotions, finnishness, the Finnish Civil War, Joel Lehtonen.

Teaching in Finnish literature

Teaching during the academic year 2025-2026: master's thesis seminar in the autumn, a lecture course on the theory and history of the essay, exams on 19th century, early 20th century and late 20th century literature, and contemporary literature, Basic course of literary analysis in the Spring.

Teaching during the academic year 2024-2025: Basic course of literary analysis in the autumn, examiner duties for the courses "Realism and Naturalism", "From Modernism to Postmodernism" and "Intertextuality and Intermediality", supervision of two master's theses, two guest lectures.

I worked as a substitute for university lecturer Anna Hollsten in spring 2023. Courses taught then: bachelor's seminar, Late 20th century Finnish literature, History and theory of the essay, Language and literature in society. I supervised 13 bachelor's theses and 4 master's theses and evaluated students applying for teacher education in Finnish language and literature.

Other teaching experience (most relevant):

Summer course on Finnish language and culture for students of foreign universities, summer 2023, University of Helsinki.

A lecture course on Finnish contemporary literature, Open university, summer 2021 and 2022, and University of Helsinki, spring 2022 and 2024.

A practice course on the basics of literary analysis, University of Helsinki, spring 2022 and autumn 2024, and Open University, summer 2022-2025.

A lecture course on the history and theory of the essay, Open university, summer 2017 and autumn 2025, and University of Helsinki, autumn 2020.

Lecture courses on early 20th century Finnish literature in the Open University, autumn 2013, spring 2015, summer 2017, and summer 2019.

Exams on 19th century, early 20th century, and contemporary Finnish literature in the Open University, 2013-2024.

A course on the Finnish Fin de Siècle, spring 2014 and 2015.

A literature circle for first year students of Finnish literature, 2011-2014.