EnglanTY ← What the dickens is happening at the Department of English, Turku University

What’s that MA Thesis all about?

Jun

19

2025

On 8 April 2025, students and staff members of the Department of English gathered for the annual MA Thesis Symposium. The event has been organized since 2013, so one could safely say that it is turning into a true tradition of the English Department. The MA Thesis Symposium showcases MA research done at the department. ...

International collaboration facilitates research on interactional fluency

Jun

11

2025

L2 interactional fluency across contexts (ILFACT) is a research project focused on second language (L2) fluency in interactive settings. The project is conducted by members of the FlowLang research group and is funded by the Research Council of Finland (2024–2028). The project aims to provide information about interactional fluency and the factors that affect it, ...

Visualising knowledge: reflections from the Reading Visual Devices conference

Jun

5

2025

On 22 May, the foyer of Arcanum buzzed with anticipation as attendees gathered for the Reading Visual Devices conference organized by the Early Modern Graphic Literacies (EModGraL) project. The event began with a warm welcome from Marjo Kaartinen, Rector of the University of Turku and a member of the EModGraL project. Rector Kaartinen highlighted the ...

Making sense of historical multiliteracy

Apr

10

2025

On 26 March, the Department of English celebrated over coffee and cake the latest publication of the Early Modern Graphic Literacies (EModGraL) research project: an edited peer-reviewed volume entitled Graphic Practices and Literacies in the History of English. The 350-page book is published by the Belgium-based international academic publisher Brepols and edited by Matti Peikola, ...

TiTaRa: Between Science and Magic Symposium Through the Eyes of an Assistant

Nov

15

2024

The TiTaRa: Between Science and Magic Symposium was a great success! The symposium was held on 10–11 October here in Turku together with the Finnish Network of Magic Studies to explore topics such as Western esotericism, magic, witchcraft and early sciences bordering them (such as alchemy and astrology). Participants arrived from around the world, and ...

Tracing the Complicities of Colonial Violence

Oct

7

2024

On a warm Saturday morning, on 24 August 2024, a small audience gathered to celebrate Amin Beiranvand as he defended his doctoral dissertation Gendered Sexual Violence and Complicity: A Postcolonial Study of Selected Works by J. M. Coetzee. Professor Joel Kuortti acted as custos and adjunct professor John Stotesbury from the University of Eastern Finland ...

Doctoral researcher exploring the FINSSE-11 conference: What is the role of non-human animals when it comes to sustainability in English studies?

Aug

13

2024

FINSSE, the Finnish Society for the Study of English, was founded in 1998 “to advance university-level research and teaching in Finland of the English language, literatures in English and cultures of English-speaking peoples”. Biennially, a FINSSE conference is organised “to bring together university teachers, scholars and advanced students from all fields of English studies.” This ...

A harmony of work and play – Working as a conference assistant in the Trextuality conference

May

2

2024

Serving as a conference assistant and project intern is an excellent decision. Please, let me tell you why! The info desk of the Trextuality conference, occupied by two conference assistants (taken by the Trextuality social media team) I attended the Trextuality conference as an assistant and project intern. The conference was aimed at scholars working ...

Unraveling the Complexities of Competence

Apr

8

2024

Earlier this spring, I had the opportunity to attend an eye-opening event on the “complexities of competence”, namely, Marja-Leena Niitemaa’s doctoral defense on Complexities of Competence: A Study on Finnish Upper-secondary Lexical Development and Use of L2 English. I had no idea what to expect, other than it was a formal event, and, I imagined, ...

Research visit to Philipps University Marburg

Oct

6

2023

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 ...