Research visit to Philipps University Marburg

Research visit to Philipps University Marburg
As part of my postdoctoral research period in the Research Council of Finland funded project Fluency and Disfluency Features in L2 Speech (FDF2; 2020–2024, PI Pekka Lintunen), I spent six months as a visiting researcher at Philipps University Marburg in Germany during January–June 2023. The main purpose of this research visit was to facilitate collaboration ...

So-Swiss-ticated in Zurich

So-Swiss-ticated in Zurich
Switzerland. The home of cheese, chocolate, the Alps… and a bustling English Department at the University of Zurich with an overwhelmingly well-stocked library that I could have lived in for the entirety of my four-week stay and I still wouldn’t have even scratched the surface, and a staff that welcomed me with open arms? As ...

Finding the Right Answers in Fiction

Finding the Right Answers in Fiction
Nana Arjopalo gave an outstanding performance defending her doctoral dissertation Narrating Deliverance: The Literary Double in the Writing of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Bharati Mukherjee on Friday, February 24, 2023. The viva was a true celebration of literature and the impact it has on humanity. Professor Joel Kuortti testing the connection, picture and ...

Becoming an English teacher in Namibia and Finland

Becoming an English teacher in Namibia and Finland
This autumn, the School of Languages and Translation Studies has had a visitor from the University of Namibia (UNAM), Dr Meameno Shiweda, who is a specialist in teacher education. In this blog post, Meameno and Janne Skaffari talk about similarities and differences in what and whom they teach and, more broadly, in the educational systems ...

A DOCTORATE will be given for the completion and defense of a dissertation

A DOCTORATE will be given for the completion and defense of a dissertation
Susanna Mäkinen defended her doctoral dissertation, Stability and variation in the genre of runaway slave notices in American newspapers 1704-1865, on Friday 20 May 2022. While the never-tiring doctoral researchers of the English department have produced quite a few dissertation and vivas to accompany them in the recent years, Susanna was the first one to ...

Defenses during Covid: Traditions and pandemics

Defenses during Covid: Traditions and pandemics
Sirkku Ruokkeinen defended her doctoral dissertation, Historical appraisal analysis: evaluation of the book in sixteenth-century England, on Saturday 4 December 2021. The defense is a culmination of years of work, and as such, often a stressful event. While the dissertation itself is naturally the focus of the years prior, the event itself has its own ...

Defending alchemy 1

Defending alchemy
Doctor in spe Sara Norja defended her doctoral dissertation, Alchemy in the Vernacular: An Edition and Study of Early English Witnesses of The Mirror of Alchemy, on Thursday 27 May 2021. Here, she writes about the viva and the days leading up to it. Due to the pandemic the viva was on Zoom, so the ...

Two days to go: Upcoming defense on second language speech fluency

Two days to go: Upcoming defense on second language speech fluency
Doctoral candidate Pauliina Peltonen will defend her PhD dissertation entitled Individual and Interactional Speech Fluency in L2 English from a Problem-solving Perspective: A Mixed-methods Approach this week on September 11th, 2020. The audience will be able to follow the defense online via Zoom. Professor Judit Kormos from Lancaster University will be the opponent and Dr ...

So long, Marianne: Professor Liljeström’s farewell lecture

So long, Marianne: Professor Liljeström's farewell lecture
There are (at least) three important lecture occasions in a professor’s career. First, there is the sample lecture testing the professorial candidates’ teaching abilities when the post is filled. After being appointed to their post, the new professor gives an inaugural lecture to demonstrate their newly verified professorial wisdom. Finally, at the end of their ...

Translating multilingual texts

Translating multilingual texts
Another PhD defence in just under two months! A number of doctoral candidates of the English Department are now finishing their research projects. On 24 January, it was Laura Ekberg’s big day. Laura’s research topic combines translation studies and literature and focuses on a phenomenon also studied in linguistics. As it happens, code-switching was at ...