Areas of expertise
Research field: literature
- modern literary manuscripts
- archival studies
- genetic criticism
- connections between folklore and literature
- study of poetry
- Finnish poetry at the turn of the 1800s and 1900s
- symbolism
- Otto Manninen
I work as a senior researcher in the research department. I am an expert in archival research and textual studies. I have also studied the connections between literature and folk songs, as well as the poetry of Otto Manninen and Aleksis Kivi. In September 2026 I will begin working on a research project dealing with the shared history of the SKS and the national sciences (folklore studies, study of Finnish language, literature and history etc.).
In my post-doctoral research, I examined the significance of rhymed folk songs for the poetry of Otto Manninen’s (1872–1950) and in his writing process. The research opened up the relationship of Manninen’s poetry to oral tradition and provided new insights into rhymed folk songs.
In my dissertation “The Birth of Verses. A genetic study of Otto Manninen’s manuscripts” (2012) (http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-10-8315-0), I have investigated the writing processes of Manninen’s Säkeitä poetry collections (Säkeitä, 1905 and Säkeitä. Second series. 1910) through the analysis of poetry manuscripts and in the context of genetic criticism.
I have worked in the projects “Kalevala, genres and ideologies” and Open Kalevala (Avoin Kalevala). I was also a member of Academy of Finland project MuMOC: The Muted Muses of Oral Culture. Ideology, Transnationalism and Silenced Sources in the Making of National Heritages and Literatures (2019–2023). I worked at the Edith Unit of SKS in 2016–2017, compiling references to the Seven Brothers. I have taught at the University of Helsinki on archival studies and textual criticism, and I have lectured, for example, on Otto Manninen’s work, writers’ manuscripts and unfinished literary works. In addition, I have given numerous public lectures on my research topics.
Selected publications
Reforming Oral Tradition by Elias Lönnrot and Otto Manninen: Nineteenth-century Textual Processes, Textualization, and Genetic Criticism (Hanna Karhu & Niina Hämäläinen), 2023.
Textual Cultures: Texts, Contexts, Interpretation. Vol. 16 No. 2 (2023), 74–105. View of Reforming oral tradition by Elias Lönnrot and Otto Manninen (iu.edu).
L’apprentissage poétique. Les réécritures de rekilaulu du poète Otto Manninen, 2023. Translated by Aleksi Moine. Études finno-ougriennes 2023 (55), pp. 211–242. https://doi.org/10.4000/efo.22798.
Use of Folklore in a Writing Process of Poetry: Rewritings of Folk Songs and References to Oral Poetry in Otto Manninen’s Early Manuscripts. In Genetic Criticism in Motion: New Perspectives on Manuscript Studies. Eds. Sakari Katajamäki, Veijo Pulkkinen & Tommi Dunderlin. Studia Fennica Litteraria. Helsinki: SKS, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21435/sflit.14.
Many Ways to Use and Play with Rhymes: The Poet Otto Manninen and the Rhymes in Finnish Rhymed Couplets. In Versification: Metrics in Practice. Eds. Frog, Satu Grünthal, Kati Kallio & Jarkko Niemi. Helsinki: SKS, 2021. https://doi.org/10.21435/sflit.12.
Säkeiden synty. Geneettinen tutkimus Otto Mannisen runokäsikirjoituksista. PhD thesis. University of Helsinki, 2012: https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/37099.
