Return to the University of Helsinki! On March 1, I took up a new position as professor in literary studies at the University of Helsinki. Looking forward to getting to know students and new colleagues, to renewing old collaborations and planning future ones! lievenameel.hypotheses.org/2901

Matthew Leggatt, Senior Lecturer in English & American Literature @uniwinchester.bsky.social, has launched a new season of his Utopian & Dystopian Fictions podcast with guest Amy Brookes, an architect who discusses intersections between architecture and speculative fiction. Listen at bit.ly/45zeuyz

CFP: Negations and Interruptions As World-Building, University College Dublin, 21-22 May 2026 call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/01/...

Live! Tonight! Sold Out: "The Future of Helsinki" at the Night of Science. My brief talk will discuss the future of Helsinki as seen through literature of the early 2000s. Climate novels, YA novels, poetry & graphic novels. Here scenes from Ville Ranta's Rain/ Sade. lievenameel.hypotheses.org/2844

Today: back to teaching the "Quarrel of Ancients and Moderns"; I'll ask students to re-enact the quarrel for the 2020s. What is the role of classical literature for the present? Why have normative positions re literature's role? Dan Edelstein's "The enlightenment: a genealogy" provided a good intro

Hey! I'm looking for a CS/DH post-doc to work on building a large corpus of news broadcasts in Finnish, Finland Swedish, Sámi & Finnish Sign Language: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki... #multimodality #digitalhumanities

The first talk in the Urban Multiplicities Seminar Series will be delivered by @rikjaz.bsky.social (@uclgeography.bsky.social) Tuesday 27th January, 16:30–18:00, Small Lecture Theatre. All welcome!

De navond komt zoo stil, zoo stil, zoo traagzaam aangetreden, dat geen en weet, wanneer de dag of waar hij is geleden. 't Is avond, stille... en, mij omtrent, is iets, of iemand, onbekend, die, zachtjes mij beroerend, zegt: ‘'t Is avond en 't is rustens recht.’ 1st stanza of a poem by Guido Gezelle

In Vienna for the Early Petropoetics conference, where I presented a paper on “‘Flickering’ Reading of Early Petro-Modernity”, w/ examples from English literature & interwar Finnish literature. Thanks to Anna Seidel, Clemens Günther & everyone at the Uni of Vienna lievenameel.hypotheses.org/2820

Deadline Sunday 18th January. www.manchestercityofliterature.com/news/were-lo...

I got to chat with @alixbeeston.bsky.social about Here Is a Figure for her @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcast! Alix asks such great questions, and it was really a joy to talk to her about where the book came from and what it’s about! If you’d like to listen: newbooksnetwork.com/here-is-a-fi...

Les 1001 nuances de la #neige à admirer au Petit Palais avec le peintre finlandais Pekka Halonen. #Exposition www.beauxarts.com/grand-format...

New book going to press: *Character Networks in Contemporary U.S. Fiction.* It’s about social networks as context for—and formal element of—the novel. For contemporary lit, novel/narrative theory, DH, lit and sociology, network analysis crowds. Here’s what it’s about: (1/n)

There is a great exhibit of Kawase Hasui’s work on at the Japanmuseum Sieboldhuis in Leiden on thru March 2026. His evolving techniques for showing rain & snow were cool to see, as was his printing of the same blocks with different color schemes to evoke different seasons.

Bee-autifully crafted gold ornament in the form of a little bee 🐝 ❤️ Length 1.90 cm. From Minoan Crete, circa 1700-1600 BC. 📷 British Museum www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o... #Archaeology

Tenuretrack professor in Cultural and Societal Storytelling (Faculty of Arts, KU Leuven) academicpositions.com/ad/ku-leuven...

Just finished my ”methods in literary studies” course. Still looking for material on annotation as part of reading strategies. @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and @johannawinant.bsky.social 's recent book has some material but most teaching materials tend to be on writing. Any suggestions re note-taking?

JOB: Assistant Professor in Modern German Studies @ the University of Cambridge www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

insightful article in NYT by Carlo Rotella about humanities classrooms in times of AI. Empowering thoughts on how this can be a space to rethink how we engage w/ students and how we can enable students to engage. Thanks to ‪@minsong.bsky.social‬ for the link! www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/m...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Teaching @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social & @johannawinant.bsky.social five-steps for writing out a close reading, today in my literary methods class. Also referencing Vanderburg on the "method wars" for a bit of context (although only partly applicable to the Nordics) www.nplusonemag.com/issue-50/rev...

Opening today in the Hendrik Conscience Library in #Antwerp: Letter by Letter (By the Woolf’s Hands). This exhibition showcases the editions of the #Hogarth Press, printed and bound by Virginia and Leonard #Woolf. It's the first time all 34 editions are brought together in an exhibition.

New publication on active life of lit-> "How does the study of literature, language, and humanities help build critical capacities? How do we address the current state of the humanities in the age of AI? What are examples of applied humanities programs and careers?" asterismbooks.com/product/buil...

Publishing soon in our flagship 'Environmental Cultures' series, 'Postcolonial Poetry and the Environment' by Pramod Nayar, which studies the work of over 50 poets: www.bloomsbury.com/postcolonial...

Still a few weeks left to apply to this delightful conference!

My colleague Marie-Theres Fojuth has advertised a fully funded 3-year PhD Fellowship in Museum Education @unistavanger.bsky.social with the «Into the Fjords: Blue Museums as Arenas of Learning about Vulnerable Ecosystems (FJORDS)» project. Perfect for Scandinavian-speaking #envhum #envhist people!

I m advertising a PhD position as part of our ERC project BLOCKADE. The PhD cand. should focus on myth/narratives of the hunger blockade in Germany, Austria in the era of the World Wars. 4 years of funding, wonderful team, amazing city (evidence attached)! Pls share! www.hsozkult.de/opportunity/...

Seen in the wild in Finland: @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social & @johannawinant.bsky.social Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century. Got my copy this morning, used it in teaching a seminar in the afternoon!

Today is pub day for my third book: Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century. It is a handbook on how to read. It argues for the foundational importance of *caring* to thought. It offers an anatomy of close reading's five steps so we can hone the skills to perform them. It argues for why to read

10 days left to apply for this course! Many amazing scholars will contribute to this course, including @untamed.bsky.social, @dudleymarianna.bsky.social, Abigail Harrison Moore, Alice Owen, and @andersriel.bsky.social! #envhist #energyhistory #envhum

TTiN’s first event of the new term. Join us online for this lunchtime discussion about infrastructure, art, and autoethnography.

Come work with us! We are hiring 3 postdoctoral researchers working in cultural game studies from the beginning of 2026 until the end of 2027. Read more and apply by 31.10.2025 (at 23.59.00 EET / UTC+2):

The world’s largest carbon registry, Verra, has pulled millions of carbon credits from the market after they were scrutinized in my and Jonas Gerding’s @longplay.fi investigation (so far only available in Finnish, but more stories are coming up!) (1/4)

A major new biography of the iconic Austrian empress that challenges the many myths about her life and rule. Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger is now available in #paperback: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb... #History #Habsburg

🌱 Fully funded PhD scholarship in Environmental Humanities at Ghent University! A unique opportunity to collaborate with Marco Caracciolo, Elly McCausland, and me on innovative research connecting literature, culture, and ecology.

#OTD 19 September 1991, walkers in the high Ötztal alps on the Italian border, found a body melting out of the ice. It turned out to be the remains of a c.5200 year old man preserved with all his kit. Of course, it was essential to replicate him in Playmobil. 1🧵 #PlaymobilÖtzi #PlaymobilInfestation

I spent the last 4 days with a band of mad academics and artists rolling from Vienna to Istanbul for a conference on #railwayaesthetics held on the train. The work was great and I can’t thank them enough. Some images

Crossing into Bulgaria, #RailwayAsthetics

Looking for a telephone operator

panel "Disconnected Branches" starting at the Royal Salon, Bucharest North station), at the Railway Aesthetics conference lievenameel.hypotheses.org/2605

In Vienna for the Railway Aesthetics conference, which takes place in and around trains, including several night-trains on the trajectory Vienna – Bucharest – Istanbul. Program includes a panel at the Royal Salon in Bucharest & visit to the Energy Museum in Istanbul lievenameel.hypotheses.org/2605

In Tartu for the one-week Nordplus course "Eco-Critical Approaches to Narratives across Media: A Nordic Perspective". I presented on bird poetry and allegorical approaches to flooded cities, drawing a.o. on the work of Karoliina Lummaa and my earlier work on allegory lievenameel.hypotheses.org/2580

Great to welcome the latest addition to our Palgrave Literary Urban Studies series: "Cities Under Stress: Urban Discourses of Crisis, Resilience, and Resistance", edited by Eric Prieto, Liam Lanigan and Anni Lappela, based on a 2022 conference at UC Santa Barbara. lievenameel.hypotheses.org/2560

New from @edinburghup.bsky.social The Edinburgh Companion to the Millennial Novel, edited by Loïc Bourdeau and @cilloyd.bsky.social, “provides a compassionate, capacious and complex analysis of the over-discussed but under-analysed concept of the millennial and its relationship to long-form fiction”

It's alive! Publication day! Play in Utopian and Dystopian Ficion arrived in the mail. Thanks Liverpool University Press for producing such a beautiful book.

The first collaborative outcome of the project AUTOSTORY is out! "Social media and the value of literature" in TfL's latest issue written by @mariamakela.bsky.social, K. Malmio, @laurapiippo.bsky.social, M. Kangaskoski, and M. Lehtimäki is now available at publicera.kb.se/tfl/article/...

Increasingly, what makes sense to me is framing a class as a *dialogic community* and assessing students on their contributions as members of that community. Such contributions can be and should be as spontaneous as they are regulated. +

Very honored that 'Master Plans and Minor Acts' is one of three finalists for the 2025 Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award (Metropolis). Congratulations to @colinmcfarlane.bsky.social and Stephanie Wakefield and many thanks to the judging panel! www.metropolis.org/news/meet-fi...

New book cover just in, incoming spring 2026 with @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

Kökar. Thoroughly enjoying the eerie, quiet beauty of this Åland archipelago gem.