Hanna Meretoja

Hanna Meretoja is a Professor of Comparative Literature and Department Chair at the University of Turku since 2016. She is the Founding Director of SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory (2015–present) and has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford and The American University of Paris.

Education:

• PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Turku, 2010
• MA in Comparative Literature, University of Turku, 2001

Research Interests: Meretoja’s scholarship explores narrative ethics, the intersections of literature-philosophy-history, and philosophical hermeneutics. She is a key figure in cultural memory studies, trauma studies, life-writing, and medical humanities, with a focus on 20th/21st-century narrative fiction across French, German, and English literatures. Her work also examines the socio-critical dimensions of literature and the interplay of ethics and aesthetics.

Scientific Awards and Honours:

• Honorary Research Fellow, Royal Holloway (2019–2022)
• Visiting Fellowships at University of Oxford (2019–2020)
• Early Career Award for interdisciplinary narrative studies (2018)
• Founding Narrare Centre at University of Tampere (2014)
• Humanist Doctor of the Year, University of Turku (2011)

Leadership and Research Funding: She served as Vice Dean of the Faculty of Humanities (2017–2019) and Deputy Head of the School of History, Culture and Arts Studies (2015–2016) at the University of Turku. Meretoja has secured €734,630 in research funding, including grants from the Academy of Finland and the European Commission’s European Remembrance Programme. She has supervised 22 PhD students, 75 MA students, and 11 postdocs and delivered 38 keynote/invited lectures globally.