I am interested in how the texts we surround ourselves with shape us. In order to understand how different literary texts, poetry in particular, also shape our relation to the surrounding world, I examine how poetry in different ways represents and constitutes reality, for example in the relation between the US and Europe. The question of how poems and other literary texts travel between genres and settings also interests me, not least within didactics where I have studied how poems are transformed in new settings in textbooks.
Research Interests
My research focuses on American literature and particularly how it relates to the idea of Europe. In my doctoral dissertation, I examined how the poet William Carlos Williams relates to ideas of tradition and Europe in his oeuvre. I have also published work on space/place in the work of different authors, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Jack Kerouac. I am particularly interested in questions of ecocriticism and space, but have also investigated specific themes such as nostalgia, agency, and science in relation to literature. Overall, my research interests span the areas of modernism, poetry, place, the history of ideas, and ecocriticism.
Research Projects
My current research project The Europe Trope examines how American poetry portrays and constructs Europe. The project has received support from funding agencies such as The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, the Birgit and Gad Rausing Foundation for Research in the Humanities, and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
Collaborations and projects
I am Secretary of the William Carlos Williams Society.
Teaching
My teaching is both within the subject of Comparative Literature and English. I teach courses in literary history, theory and method, text analysis, children’s and young adult literature, and American poetry and prose.
I am Director of Doctoral Studies at IKOS, Campus Valla.
