The discursive analytical approach I have used allows for the study of educational practice relating to fiction at a micro level, letting pupils and teachers be heard in this research. I call this approach discursive reception studies. Detailed analyses of fictive narratives open the way for studies of the connections between fiction and real life. Since earlier research in the field of reception and reader response has been based, to a great extent, on questionnaires and interviews, I search for contexts in which people read, watch films, and go to the theatre in the course of everyday life, in order to contribute to an understanding of the ways fiction is used in “ordinary” settings—and to what ends. Further, even outside educational settings, moviegoers often refer to uses of fiction as a tool for learning, indicating the didactic potential of these creations in non/educational contexts.
My research is interdisciplinary, involving both literary and social science theory. In a broad sense, my previous and ongoing projects concern cultural reception examined in terms of the ways that artistic expressions (e.g., works of literature, films) are discussed and treated in the course of people’s everyday lives.
I’m very much involved in issues concerning the work of PhD students. In addition to teaching in the Teacher-Training Programme and conducting PhD courses in education, I also teach research supervision.
