Riikka Pirinen

I am a Doctoral Researcher in Literary Studies at Tampere University, Finland. My research interests include epiphany, narrative theory, modernist and contemporary short fiction, contemporary literary ethos, and multidisciplinary narrative studies. My doctoral dissertation, entitled Epiphany in Narrative Theory: from Modernist Experience to Contemporary Literary Ethos, explores epiphany in the intersection of narrative and short story theories in anglophone short fiction from modernism to the 2000s.

I also work as a researcher in project Journalistic Future Narratives in and about NATO-era Finland (2025–2027), funded by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation.

My areas of expertise include poetics of epiphany, structuralist and rhetorical narrative theories, short story theories, consciousness presentation and experientiality in fiction, contemporary anglophone short fiction, and metamodernism.

Literary studies