My research revolves around literature and the human mind. I have investigated questions such as how literature entwines with the our lifeworld, how it models consciousness and how writers work creatively. My long-standing interest in the history of the novel has led me to bring Early-Modern poetics, narratives and literary games into dialogue with today’s cognitive approaches to literature.
I am the director of LCE – Centre for Literature, Cognition and Emotions. The centre builds on long-term interdisciplinary collaborations with colleagues across literary studies, psychology, linguistics and anthropology. Our LCE Podcast has three seasons available currently.
Recently, I have completed a book manuscript on creativity and contingency in literary writing. My current project JEUX – Literary Games, Poetics and the Early-Modern Novel is funded by an ERC-Consolidator Grant and will investigate how literary games facilitated novelists’ narrative innovations.
I have been awarded the UiO Younger Researcher Prize (2019), and I am an elected member of the Academy of Europe (since 2022).
A full list of my publications can be found on my Google Scholar profile. Most of my publications are available in Open Access under «Publications» below.
Academic interests
Narratology; Poetics; Eighteenth-Century Literature; Seventeenth-Century Literature; Comics and Graphic Novels; Cognitive Literary Study
Earlier Projects
Probability Designs: Literature and Predictive Processing
How the Novel Found its Feet: Embodiment in Eighteenth-Century Fiction
A Prehistory of Cognitive Poetics: Neoclassicism and the Novel
For more on my research and publications, see my profiles on Academia.edu, ResearchGate and Google Scholar.
Courses taught
LIT1301 Vestens litteratur antikken til 1700
LIT1302 Vestens litteratur 1700-1900
LIT4340A/LIT4340B Litterært tekststudium I: Mimesis
LIT4310A/LIT4310B Litteraturteoretisk studium I: Cognitive Literary Study
LIT2340 Sjangerstudium: The Makings of a Genre: The Eighteenth-Century Novel
LIT2300 Litteraturtheoretisk emne: The Theory and History of Reading