معرفی
Vilja Alanko is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki's Faculty of Theology, affiliated with the multidisciplinary Doctoral Programme in Gender, Culture, and Society. She has served on the programme's board and participated in academic networks including the Nordic Network for the Study of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and the international Feminist Readings group.
- Current project: Lived Scriptures (Academy of Finland funded)
- Past projects: Embodied Religion (2014-2019), Reason and Religious Recognition (2018-2022)
Her research combines feminist theory (particularly Luce Irigaray's maternal genealogy framework) with analysis of early Christian hagiographies, focusing on mother-daughter relationships in texts like the Acts of Thecla, Life of Macrina, and Life of Mary of Egypt. She investigates how gender ambivalence and female agency are represented in Late Antique religious narratives.
Recent publications (2019-2023) demonstrate consistent output in feminist theology (6 articles), hagiographic analysis (4 conference contributions), and critical reviews (3 book reviews). Her work intersects theology, gender studies, and philosophical inquiry, with a particular emphasis on Irigaray's sensible transcendental framework applied to scriptural interpretation.
- Key research themes: gender and religion, asceticism, feminist biblical exegesis
- Methodological approach: interdisciplinary (theology + gender theory), textual analysis of patristic and hagiographic sources
