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About me

As a family historian and ancient historian, specialized in Late Antiquity and Early Christianity, I am especially interested in the history of childhood, in the history of experience and of the continuity strategies for immortality, as well as in more theoretical aspects in studying and writing history. Presently I study children's socialization, agency and spheres of interaction in Roman Egypt in a research project with Dr. April Pudsey (Manchester Metropolitan University), based on a systematic survey of all material pertaining to the city and nome of Oxyrhynchos. I am seeking for financiation to start another research project, titled as History of Hope. Meaningfulness in Daily Life in the Roman World

Fields of expertise

- Social and cultural history of the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity

- History of Children and Childhood

- Children and family in Early Christianity and in Roman Egypt

- Grandparents and grandparenthood in the Roman world

- History of emotions in Ancient World

- History of the idea of 'Lapland' (1840-1960)

Main positions of trust

- Board of Education, Tampere University (ordinary member, 2019 - )

- Working group for University values (ordinary member, 2019) 

Selected publications

’Single life in Late Antiquity? Virgins between the Earthly and the Heavenly Family’, in S. Huebner and C. Laes (eds), Singles and Single Life in Antiquity. Cambridge University Press 2019, 276-291. 

‘Grandmothers in Roman Egypt’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 57 (2017), 372–402. 

‘Experience, Agency, and the Children in the Past: the Case of Roman Childhood’, in C. Laes and V. Vuolanto (eds), Children and Everyday Life in the Roman and Late Antique World. Ashgate 2016, 11–24. 

Children and Asceticism in Late Antiquity. Continuity, Family Dynamics and the Rise of Christianity. Ashgate 2015. 

‘Children in the Roman World: Cultural and Social Perspectives. A Review Article’. Arctos 48 (2014), 435-450. 

‘Elite Children, Socialization and Agency in the late Roman World,’ in J.Evans Grubbs and T.Parkin (eds), Oxford Handbook of Childhood in Antiquity. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 2013, 580-599. 

Lapsuus ja arki antiikissa ja keskiajalla (with Sari Katajala-Peltomaa). Gaudeamus 2013 [A 300 pages monograph on children's everyday life in ancient and medieval world]. 

'Children and the Memory of Parents in the Late Roman World'. In V. Dasen & T. Späth (eds) Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture. Oxford University Press 2010, 173-192. 

'Tutkimusprosessi, metodit ja historiantutkimuksen ominaislaatu [Research process, methods, and the characteristics of the historical research]'. Historiallinen Aikakauskirja [Finnish Historical Journal] 105 (3), 304-16. 

'Selling a Freeborn Child: Rhetoric and Social Realities in the Late Roman World'. Ancient Society 33 (2003), 169-207. 

In total ca 110 publications, of which ca 60 refereed. For a full list, see here