Postdoctoral Fellow Hanna Meretoja, PhD, Adjunct Professor
Hanna Meretoja studied Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Cultural History, Art History and Media Studies, before completing her PhD in 2010 at the University of Turku. Since 2001, she has been working in various teaching and research positions at the Department of Comparative Literature, and has also conducted doctoral research at the University of Tübingen (2002-2003), Sorbonne Nouvelle (spring 2004) and Uppsala University (spring 2008).
In her dissertation, The French Narrative Turn: From the Problematization of Narrative Subjectivity in Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Dans le labyrinthe to its Hermeneutic Rehabilitation in Michel Tournier's Le Roi des Aulnes (2010), Meretoja analysed the crisis and return of narratively understood subjectivity in relation to various philosophical traditions, to the postwar socio-cultural situation and to current debates in narrative studies. In her current research project, Meretoja explores the ethical dimension of narrating the past as a process that is integral to both individual and collective narrative identities. She analyses the philosophical assumptions to which different ethical approaches to storytelling as a means of dealing with the past are connected in narrative theory and in selected contemporary novels (particularly in novels that deal with traumatic legacy of the Second World War).
Meretoja is particularly interested in the interrelations between literature, philosophy and history. In several publications, she has explored the philosophical (ontological, epistemological, ethico-political) and cultural-historical underpinnings of selected novels from the postwar period to the present. She has also published theoretical articles on the methodology and philosophy of literary studies. Her research interests include the intersections of ethics and aesthetics, narrative studies, hermeneutics, questions of subjectivity, identity and otherness, cultural memory, war and trauma, consumer culture and the socio-critical potential of art. Meretoja’s articles and conference papers deal with a range of novelists from the French nouveaux romanciers, Michel Tournier and Günter Grass to contemporary novelists such as Michel Houellebecq, Siri Hustvedt, Julia Franck, Jonathan Littell, Caryl Phillips and Muriel Barbery. With her colleagues, she has launched "Café Voltaire" (Helsinki: Avain/BTJ Finland), a series of essay anthologies that deal with contemporary literature from various countries. She has co-edited the first and third volumes of the series (on French and German literature), and is currently the Chief Editor of the series.
Hanna Meretoja is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Tampere from January 2013 to August 2016 (50%). During that time, she works half-time as a research fellow in Turku. She is also the research leader of the multidisciplinary project "The Experience of History and the Ethics of Storytelling in Contemporary Arts" (2013-2015, funded by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation).
Selected publications and presentations
Journal articles and book chapters in English
"Narrative and Human Existence: An Ontological, Epistemological and Ethical Question." New Literary History (forthcoming).
"The Philosophical Underpinnings of the Narrative Turn in Theory and Fiction." – Mari Hatavara, Lars-Christer Hydén & Matti Hyvärinen (eds), The Travelling Concepts of Narrative. Amsterdam & New York: John Benjamins (forthcoming).
"On the Ethical Significance of Encountering the Otherness of Literary Worlds." – Kuisma Korhonen, Arto Haapala, Kristian Klockars & Sara Heinämaa (eds), Chiasmatic Encounters. Series editor Hugh J. Silverman. Lexington Books (forthcoming).
"An Inquiry into Historical Experience and its Narration: The Case of Günter Grass." Spiel: Siegener Periodicum for International Empiricist Literary Scholarship. Editors of the Special Issue "Auf dem Weg zu einer Narratologie der 'Geschichtsschreibung': Towards a Historiographical Narratology": Julia Nitz and Sandra Harbart Petrulionis. Vol. 30 (1), 2011, 51-72.
"For a Novel of Non-Comprehension: Robbe-Grillet´s Ontology, Epistemology and Ethics." - Roger-Michel Allemand & Christian Milat (eds), Alain Robbe-Grillet: balises pour le XXIe siècle. Ottawa & Paris: Presses de l'université d'Ottawa & Les Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2010, 331-341.
"Against Pre-Established Meanings: Revisiting Alain Robbe-Grillet´s Relation to Phenomenology." – Carole Bourne-Taylor and Ariane Mildenberg (eds), Phenomenology, Modernism and Beyond. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010, 123-164.
"Rethinking Narrative Subjectivity: Paul Ricoeur's Hermeneutics of the Self and Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved." – Jan Kucharzewski, Stefanie Schäfer and Lutz Showalter (eds), 'Hello, I Say, It's Me.' Contemporary Reconstructions of Self and Subjectivity. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier (WVT), 2010, 129-149.
"Robbe-Grillet’s Ethics of Non-Narrativity in the Post-War Context (Sartre, Levinas, Barthes)." – Kuisma Korhonen & Pajari Räsänen (eds), The Event of Encounter in Art and Philosophy: Continental Perspectives. Helsinki: Gaudeamus Helsinki University Press, 2010, 97-124.
"Hermeneutics of Narrative Identity in Michel Tournier's The Erl-King." – Birgit Neumann, Ansgar Nünning & Bo Pettersson (eds), Narrative and Identity. Theoretical Approaches and Critical Analyses. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2008, 73-86.
"Language - a Bridge or a Barrier? Hermeneutic and Post-Structuralist Views on the Possibility of Rational and Ethical Communication." – Jón Ólafsson and Juha Räikkä (eds), Rationality in Global and Local Contexts. Turku: Reports from the Department of Philosophy, 2007, 105-120.
"The Narrative Turn in the French Novel of the 1970s." – The Travelling Concept of Narrative. Ed. Matti Hyvärinen, Anu Korhonen & Juri Mykkänen. COLLeGIUM: Studies across Disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Helsinki: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2006, 97-117. [ pdf]
"Sobre el potencial crítico y emancipador de la hermenéutica gadameriana desde la perspectiva de los estudios literarios." [Translated from the manuscript "On the Critical and Emancipatory Potential of Gadamerian Hermeneutics from the Perspective of Literary Studies" by Gorka Fernández Villarón.] – Endoxa: Series Filosóficas. No 20. Hans-Georg Gadamer: El Lógos de la era hermenéutica. Ed. Teresa Oñate Zubía, Miguel Angel Quintana Paz & Cristina García Santos. Madrid: UNED, 2005, 379-404.
"The Ethical Ambiguity of the Monster: Good and Evil as Human Possibilities in Michel Tournier's Le Roi des Aulnes." – Paul L. Yoder and Peter Mario Kreuter (eds), Monsters and Monstrous. Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2004, 215-229. [ pdf]
Book review
"Narratives of French Modernity: Themes, Forms and Metamorphoses. Essays in Honour of David Gascoigne (review)." French Studies: A Quarterly Review. Vol. 66 (2), 2012, 278-279.
Articles and book chapters in Finnish
"Mitä on filosofinen kirjallisuudentutkimus? Romaani filosofian ja historian risteyskohdissa." [What is Philosophical Literary Research? The Novel at the Intersections of Philosophy and History.] – Hanna Meretoja & Aino Mäkikalli (eds), Romaanin historian ja teorian kytköksiä [Intersections of the History and Theory of the Novel]. Helsinki: SKS (Finnish Literature Society) (forthcoming 2013).
Hanna Meretoja & Aino Mäkikalli, "Romaanin historian ja teorian monimutkainen vuorovaikutus antiikista nykypäivään." [The Complex Interaction between the History and Theory of the Novel from the Ancient Greece to the Present.] – Hanna Meretoja & Aino Mäkikalli (eds), Romaanin historian ja teorian kytköksiä [Intersections of the History and Theory of the Novel]. Helsinki: SKS (Finnish Literature Society) (forthcoming 2013).
Hanna Meretoja & Aino Mäkikalli, "Ajallisuus kirjallisuudessa kulttuurisena, historiallisena ja filosofisena kysymyksenä." – Hanna Meretoja & Aino Mäkikalli (eds.), Tulkintojen aika – kysymyksiä kirjallisuuden ajallisuudesta [The Time of Interpretations – Questions of Temporality in Literature]. Turku: Utukirjat, 2012.
"György Dragomán ja pääkallokasvoinen sosialismi." [György Dragomán and Skull-Faced Socialism.] – Juhani & Olga Huotari (eds), Ristiaallokoissa. Esseitä unkarilaisesta nykykirjallisuudesta. [Essays on Contemporary Hungarian Literature.] Helsinki: Avain/BTJ Finland, 2012, 109–119.
"Ymmärryskäsitykset ja toisen kohtaamisen ongelma." [Conceptions of Understanding and the Problem of Encountering the Other.] – Helena Siipi & Valtteri Viljanen (eds.), Ymmärrys [Understanding]. Turku: Department of Philosophy, 2012.
"Günter Grass ja muistamisen etiikka." [Günter Grass and the Ethics of Remembrance.] – Medeiasta pronssisoturiin - Kuka tekee menneestä historiaa? Historia Mirabilis 6. Ed. Pertti Grönholm & Anna Sivula. Turku: Turun Historiallinen Yhdistys, 2010, 158-188.
Lotta Kähkönen & Hanna Meretoja, "Muistijälkiä – menneisyyden käsittely saksalaisessa nykyproosassa." [Memory Traces. Confronting the Past in Contemporary German Prose Fiction.] – Nuori Voima 4/2010, 2–5.
"Kertomatta jääneet tarinat jotka on kerrottava: Julia Franck ja Keskipäivän haltija." - Nuori Voima 4/2010, 60-63.
"Gunter Grass ja syyllisyys kerronnan moottorina." [Gunter Grass and Guilt as the Motor of Narration] - Lotta Kähkönen & Hanna Meretoja (eds.), Muistijälkiä. Esseitä saksankielisestä nykykirjallisuudesta. [Memory Traces: Essays on Contemporary German-Language Literature.] Helsinki: Avain/BTJ Finland, 2010, 103-117.
"Miten kirjoittaa Auschwitzin jälkeen? Eri sukupolvet toisen maailmansodan trauman työstäjinä." [How to Write after Auschwitz? Different Generations in Coming to Terms with the Past.] - Lotta Kähkönen & Hanna Meretoja (eds.), Muistijälkiä. Esseitä saksankielisestä nykykirjallisuudesta. [Memory Traces: Essays on Contemporary German-Language Literature.] Helsinki: Avain/BTJ Finland, 2010, 21-39.
Hanna Meretoja & Lotta Kähkönen, "Kirjallisuuden uudistuminen murrosten keskellä: Saksojen yhdistymisen jälkeisten kirjallisuuskiistojen uudelleenarviointia." – Lotta Kähkönen & Hanna Meretoja (eds.), Muistijälkiä. Esseitä saksankielisestä nykykirjallisuudesta [Memory Traces. Essays on Contemporary German-Language Literature]. Helsinki: Avain/BTJ Finland, 2010, 40–51.
"Caryl Phillips: jäljittämässä erilaisuuden pelkoa halki historian." [Caryl Phillips: Tracing the Fear of Difference Through History.] – Päivi Kosonen, Päivi Mäkirinta & Eila Rantonen (eds), Imperiumin perilliset. Esseitä brittiläisestä nykykirjallisuudesta [Essays on contemporary British Fiction]. Helsinki: Avain, 2009, 125-138.
"Inhimillisen todellisuuden narratiivisuus epistemologisena ja ontologisena kysymyksenä." [The Narrativity of Human Reality as an Epistemological and Ontological Question.] – Samuli Hägg, Markku Lehtimäki & Liisa Steinby (eds.), Näkökulmia kertomuksen tutkimukseen [Perspectives on the Study of Narrative]. Helsinki: SKS, 2009, 207-237.
"Ihmissuhteet kulutussuhteina Michel Houellebecqin romaanissa Oikeus nautintoon." [Human Relations as Relations of Consumption in Michel Houellebecq’s novel Plateforme.] – Jussi Ojajärvi & Liisa Steinby (eds), Minä ja markkinavoimat. Yksilö, kulttuuri ja yhteiskunta uusliberalismin valtakudella [Me and the Market Forces: The Individual, Culture and Society in the Era of Neo-Liberalism] Helsinki: Avain, 2008, 256-286.
"Michel Tournier – myyttien uudelleentulkitsija." [Michel Tournier – a reinterpreter of myths.] – Päivi Kosonen, Hanna Meretoja & Päivi Mäkirinta (eds), Tarinoiden paluu – Esseitä ranskalaisesta nykykirjallisuudesta. Helsinki: Avain, 2008.
"Michel Houellebecq – myöhäismodernin kulutusyhteiskunnan kuvaaja." [Michel Houellebecq – depicting late modern society of consumption.] – Päivi Kosonen, Hanna Meretoja & Päivi Mäkirinta (eds), Tarinoiden paluu – Esseitä ranskalaisesta nykykirjallisuudesta. Helsinki: Avain, 2008.
"Ranskalainen uusi romaani avantgardekirjallisuuden suuntauksena." [The French New Novel as a Movement of Avantgarde Literature.] – Sakari Katajamäki & Harri Veivo (eds.), Kirjallisuuden avantgarde ja kokeellisuus [The Avantgarde of Literature and Experientiality.] Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2007, 183-205.
"Kysymisen taito. Hermeneutiikka kriittisen kulttuurintutkimuksen lähtökohtana." [The Art of Questioning: Hermeneutics as a Basis for Critical Cultural Studies.] – Kulttuurintutkimus 21 (3). Urpo Kovala & Eeva Peltonen (eds), 2004, 3-9.
"Tarinoiden hajottajista toisin kertojiin. Kirjailijan yhteiskuntakriittisestä tehtävästä eksistentialismin jälkeisessä Ranskassa." [From Dismantling Stories to Telling Otherwise: On the Social-Critical Function of the Author in Post-Existentialist France.] – Tuomo Lahdelma, Risto Niemi-Pynttäri, Outi Oja & Keijo Virtanen (eds), Laji, tekijä, instituutio. Kirjallisuudentutkijain seuran vuosikirja 56. Helsinki: SKS [Finnish Literature Society], 2004, 121–150.
"Itseymmärryksen kulttuuris-historiallinen välittyneisyys Gadamerin ja Ricoeurin hermeneutiikassa." [The Cultural-Historical Mediatedness of Self-Understanding in Gadamer’s and Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics.] – Sakari Ollitervo, Jussi Parikka & Timo Väntsi (eds), Kohtaamisia ajassa. Kulttuurihistoria ja tulkinnan teoria. Turku: k&h, 2003, 58–86.
"Tarujen hirviön harteilla: myytit todellisuuden hahmottamisen välineinä Michel Tournierin Keijujen kuninkaassa." [On the Shoulders of the Ogre: Myths as Means of Shaping Reality in Michel Tournier’s Le Roi des Aulnes.] – Liisa Saariluoma (ed.), Keijujen kuningas ja musta Akhilleus: myytit modernissa kirjallisuudessa. Helsinki: SKS [Finnish Literature Society], 2000, 191–226.
Co-edited books
Hanna Meretoja & Aino Mäkikalli (eds), Romaanin historian ja teorian kytköksiä [Intersections of the History and Theory of the Novel]. Helsinki: SKS (Finnish Literature Society), 2013.
Hanna Meretoja & Aino Mäkikalli (eds), Tulkintojen aika. Kysymyksiä ajallisuudesta kirjallisuudessa [The Time of Interpretations. Questions of Temporality in Literature]. Turku: Utukirjat, 2012.
Lotta Kähkönen & Hanna Meretoja (eds.), Muistijälkiä. Esseitä saksankielisestä nykykirjallisuudesta [Memory Traces: Essays on Contemporary German-Language Literature]. Helsinki: Avain / BTJ Finland, 2010.
Päivi Kosonen, Hanna Meretoja & Päivi Mäkirinta (eds.), Tarinoiden paluu. Esseitä ranskalaisesta nykykirjallisuudesta [The Return of Stories: Essays on Contemporary French Literature]. Helsinki: Avain, 2008.
A Study Guide
Lotta Kähkönen, Hanna Meretoja & Aino Mäkikalli, Ideasta tutkielmaksi. Opas kirjallisuustieteellisen tutkielman tekijöille [From an Idea to a Thesis. A Guide to Writing a Thesis in Literary Studies]. University of Turku: Comparative Literature, 2010.
Papers in international conferences
"Reshaping Our Spaces of Experience: On the Ethical Potential of Historiographical Literature", Values in Literature and the Value of Literature, University of Helsinki, 12.–14.9.2012.
"Experimentation for its Own Sake? Intertwinement of Material and Meaning in the Nouveau Roman", Material Meanings, University of Kent, 7.–9.9.2012.
"The Ethics of Narrative Memory: From Benjamin and Arendt to Julia Franck", Narrative Matters: Life and Narrative, American University of Paris, 28.5.–1.6.2012.
"Crossings of Narrative Theory and Fiction: Towards Dialogical Narrativity." Crossings, Frictions, Fusions: 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies: International Colloquim, Long Beach, California, 28.3.–1.4.2012.
"Historical Experience, Historiographic Narrative Studies and the Case of Günter Grass." Shared Past – Conflicting Histories, University of Turku, 28.–29.9.2011.
A panelist in "Comparative Literature Studies: Debates and Discussions", Literary Studies Now! Finnish Literary Research Society, Helsinki, 31.5.–1.6.2011.
"Experientiality, Understanding the Past, and Conceptions of Narrative." Teaching Narrative and Teaching Through Narrative, University of Tampere, 26.–28.5.2011.
"Between Power and Autonomy: Rethinking Subjectivity in Terms of Narrative Dialogicality." The Travelling Concept of Narrative II: International and Interdisciplinary Symposium, 11.-13.11.2010, London.
"Literature, Historiography and Ethics: Julia Franck's Die Mittagsfrau." Cultural Histories: Close Readings, Critical Syntheses, 26.-30.5.2010, University of Turku.
"Ethics of Narrative Identity: Power, Autonomy and Regulated Dialogicality." Regulated Liberties, 22.-22.8.2009, University of Turku.
"For a novel of non-comprehension: Robbe-Grillet's ontology, epistemology and ethics." Alain Robbe-Grillet: Balises pour le XXIe siècle, 1.-3.6.2009, University of Ottawa.
"Narrativity of Human Reality: Intertwinement of the Epistemological, Ontological and Ethical dimension." Narrative Across Disciplines. Workshop by James Phelan, 27.10.2008, University of Tampere.
"From Problematization to Rehabilitation of Narrative Subjectivity." (Re)Constructions of Subjectivity in Contemporary Literature and Culture, 3.-4.4.2008, University of Düsseldorf.
"From Formalism to Hermeneutics: A shift in the French debate on the task of literature." Aesthetics and the Aesthetic, 30.5.-1.6.2008, University of Uppsala.
"Against the myth of naturalness: the emancipatory dimension of Robbe-Grillet's novels." Writing in Context/L'écriture en contexte, 1.-3.6.2006, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.
"Hermeneutics of Narrative Identity in Michel Tournier's The Erl-King." Narrative and Identities, 3.-4.11.2006, University of Giessen.
"Ethics of Non-Narrativity: Levinas and Robbe-Grillet." Encounters in Art and Philosophy, 9.-10.11.2006, University of Helsinki.
"From positivism to hermeneutics: identity and meaning in Alain Robbe-Grillet's Dans le labyrinthe and Michel Tournier's Le Roi des Aulnes." Discursive Spaces: Identity, Memory and Meaning, 26.-27.5.2005, University of Dublin.
"On the Ethical Significance of Encountering the Otherness of Literary Worlds." Chiasmatic Encounters. 29th Annual Conference of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, 2.-7.6.2005, University of Helsinki.
"The Ethical Ambiguity of the Monster. Good and Evil as Human Possibilities in Michel Tournier’s Le Roi des Aulnes." Monsters and the Monstrous. Perspectives on the Human Evilness, 10.–12.5.2004, Budapest.
"On the Significance of Literary Worlds for the Ethical Imagination." The Challenge of Pluralism – The Power of Interpretation, 22.–24.10.2004, University of Uppsala.
"The Literary Work as a Discloser of New Possibilities of Being" konferenssissa Ontologies of the Literary Work and the Moving Image, 11.–12.11.2004, University of Oulu.
"The Narrative Turn in the French Novel of the 1970s." The Traveling Concept of Narrative, 3.-4.12.2004, Helsinki Collegium for Advance Studies.
"Language - Bridge or a Barrier? Hermeneutic and Post-Structuralist Views on the Possibility of Rational and Ethical Communication." Rationality in Global and Local Contexts: Rationality and Equalization, 10.-11.12.2004, Tromsø.
"From phenomenology and structuralism to hermeneutics: the problem of subjectivity in Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Dans le labyrinthe and Michel Tournier’s Le Roi des Aulnes." Hermeneutics Today, 30.8.–1.9.2001, University of Turku.