Kaisa Kortekallio is a literary scholar interested in the experientiality of fiction and lived environments. She is currently working on a post-doctoral project on ecological speculations, environmental aesthetics, and more-than-human reading.

Kortekallio's doctoral dissertation (2020) focuses on Anglo-American science fiction written in the 21st century and particularly on selected works by Greg Bear, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Jeff VanderMeer. In her dissertation, she considers how such estranging literature plays into the formation of the readers' embodied experience both during and after reading and how literature can be helpful in developing more-than-human modes of experience.

Kortekallio is a member in the Instrumental Narratives research consortium (Academy of Finland, iNARR 2018 - 2022, dir. Maria Mäkelä).

Kortekallio also teaches courses on contemporary speculative fiction, ecological theory, and posthumanist theory, and acts as board member in The Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research (FINFAR). She acts as an editor for two periodicals, niin & näin and Elonkehä.


Research interests:

- contemporary English-language science fiction and speculative fiction
- estrangement and naturalization (as literary strategies and techniques)
- posthumanist thought
- 4E cognition; embodied mind
- biology and ecology in literature
- ecological approaches to literature
- embodied experience
- environmental aesthetics

Teaching:

spring 2015: ENG242 Speculative Characters in Contemporary Science Fiction
fall 2015: Helsinki Summer School: Science Fiction in Literature and Culture
spring 2016: ENG341: Ecology and Science Fiction
spring 2017: ENG341: Ecology and Science Fiction
spring 2018: ENG-3089: Posthumanism and Science Fiction
spring 2019: ENG-3089: Speculative Fiction at the Limits of Narrative
spring 2021: ENG-Lit374: Posthumanism and Science Fiction