Kati Launis, Ph.D., is Adjunct Professor of Finnish Literature at the University of Turku. She is the author of Kerrotut naiset. Suomen ensimmäiset naisten kirjoittamat romaanit naiseuden määrittelijöinä (Narrated Women: The First Novels Written by Women in Finland Defining Womanhood, 2005) and Kynän kantama elämä. Kirjoittavat Hiiskun sisaret(2017), the biography of three writing sisters Aune, Helka and Kyllikki Hiisku. She has also written several articles on Finnish working-class writers, 19th century female writers, Gothic Fiction, and a figure of the child in Finnish realist literature. Lately she has studied the reading culture in contemporary Finland in the multidisciplinary Research Consortium LibDat: Towards a More Advanced Loaning and Reading Culture and its Information Service (Academy of Finland, 2017–2021).

In the project Texts on the Move Launis focuses on the reception of Russian literature in Finland during the early years of Finnish literary institution (1840–80). Her specific case study is female author Marie Linder (1840–1870, née Mushin-Pushkin), a Russian aristocrat by birth, who published in Finland in Swedish language. Building on her previous research on mid-nineteenth century women writers in Finland, Launis focuses on Linder as a cultural mediator or agent through whom the literary influences, debates and ideas between Russia and Finland travelled.

email: klaunis@utu.fi

Publications: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/Person/739055?lang=en_GB