My research focuses on two related fields: first, contemporary fiction, especially the Anglo-American novel from 1970 to the present, and the understanding of the novel as social discourse. My main focus has been on questions of cultural identity, nationhood and the social role of the novel. In my current project, funded by the research profile Intercultural Studies at Dalarna University, I examine the novelistic treatment of Western self-perception and civic life in fiction which thematises the 11 September 2001 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
My second field concerns higher education, specifically the teaching and learning of literature. I am particularly interested in the premises for literary studies in academic language departments and what those mean for educational organisation, teaching practice and academic professional identity. My current research, which is funded by the research profile Education and Learning at Dalarna University, focuses on the identity of the English subject in Sweden (ämnesidentitet) and the teaching of disciplinary thinking.
I am the current chair of the English department and chair of the Faculty Board Humanities and Languages (ONHUS).
In 2017, I was awarded the distinction Scholar of Teaching (Excellent lärare).
- . Det som gör humaniorautbildningar värdefulla, Humtank, 2019.
- . Seminarier i litteraturhistoria, Part of: Digitalisering av högre utbildning, Studentlitteratur AB, 2018. Chapter of book.
- . Reading and the Profession : On the Literary Education of English School Teachers, Acta Didactica Norge - tidsskrift for fagdidaktisk forsknings- og utviklingsarbeid i Norge, 2018, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1-17. Article : refereed.
- . Satirical Frame of Mind : Ken Kalfus’s A Disorder Peculiar to the Country and the Literary Engagement with 9/11, European Journal of American Studies, 2017, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1-17. Article : refereed.
- . "Studenterna kan inte problematisera" : Om ämnesidentitet, signaturpedagogiker och litteraturvetenskapigt tänkande i akademiska språkämnen, Utbildning och Demokrati, 2017, Vol. 26, No. 3, 39-63. Article : refereed.
- . Att lära sig tänka humanistiskt, 2017.
- . Internationalisering genom nätbaserad kollaboration : Högskolan Dalarnas och University of Botswanas gemensamma magisterkurs i engelska: ramar och pedagogiskt mervärde, Kultur och lärande, 2016. Report.
- . Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea and the travelling memory of the Great Irish Famine, Part of: The Leaving of Ireland, Peter Lang Publishing Group, 2015. Chapter of book.
- . Mångfald bortom identifikationer : studentpopulationens diversifiering och vetenskapens arbetssätt, Högre Utbildning, 2015, Vol. 5, No. 3, 175-187. Article : refereed.
- . The Leaving of Ireland : Migration and Belonging in Irish Literature and Film, Peter Lang Publishing Group, 2015.
- . American Malady : 9/11, Disease, and the Experience of Terrorism in Don DeLillo's Falling Man, Part of: European Views of the United States, Universitätsverlag Winter, 2014. Chapter of book.
- . Jim Sheridan’s The Field and the Memory of Dispossessed Irishness, NIS, 2014, Vol. 13, No. 1, 111-128. Article.
- . Special issue: Cultural Memory and the Remediation of Narratives of Irishness, Dalarna University Centre for Irish, 2014.
- . America after 9/11 : Ethnic Diversity and Patriotism in John Updike’s Terrorist, Part of: Transcultural Identities in Contemporary Literature, Rodopi, 2013. Chapter of book.
- . Examining the Idea of the Child : Childhood in the Contemporary British Novel, Part of: The Child in British Literature: Literary Constructions of Childhood, Medieval to Contemporary, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Chapter of book.
- . Childhood Without Children : Ian McEwan and the Critical Study of the Child, Uppsala Universitet, 2009. Doctoral thesis.
- . Dismembering a Romance of Englishness : Images of Childhood in Ian McEwan’s The Innocent, Part of: Ian McEwan : art and politics, Winter, 2009. Chapter of book.