Annual Conference 2026

Bordering the Real and Imagined
Finnish Literary Research Society’s annual conference in Oulu, May 20–22, 2026

 

The Finnish Literary Research Society’s annual conference is the largest annual event for literary studies in Finland. It brings together scholars of literature and culture across disciplinary boundaries. The 2026 conference will be held at the University of Oulu from May 20 to 22. Our visiting keynote speaker will be Professor Rita Felski (University of Virginia).

The year’s theme is Bordering the Real and Imagined. It is motivated by core questions in literary studies as well as current cultural issues. Autofiction, biofiction, and speculative fiction are popular genres. Literary movements from realism to metamodernism are increasingly exploring their possibilities. The boundaries between fact and fiction blur and fluctuate, and not just in literature. One growing concern is the media culture with its narrative economics, prevalence of disinformation, and problems pertaining to power.

The year’s theme touches nearly every literary scholar and reader. It also enables and invites interdisciplinary perspectives on literature and culture. Contributions from neighboring fields—cultural studies, philology, history, gender studies, sociology, and others—are warmly welcomed.

The following non-exhaustive list of questions are examples of themes to explore in the presentations and panels:
How is the boundary between the real and the imagined perceived across historical periods? Where do their variations appear? How does fiction respond when reality surpasses even the wildest of imaginings? How is reality thought and felt in these situations?
How does fiction influence readers’ perceptions of reality? When is fiction a critical analysis of reality, and when hardly but a site of recognition, enchantment, or shock?
What constitutes the novel’s “knowledge”? What about that of poetry, drama, essay, or aphorism? How do different literary genres and artistic movements help us get a feel for reality?
How does 21st-century realism differ from that of the 19th century? Is metamodernism, with its affect(s), the realism of our time—or something else?
What kind of knowledge about reality is found in autofiction or biofiction? What about trauma fiction? What kinds of questions about the real and imagined do these popular 21st-century genres raise? Which literary techniques foreground them?
How does speculative fiction comment on reality? What aspects of reality do fantasy, horror, or science fiction bring to light?
How do real and literary places intersect? What is the literary North? Can an imagined Paris be found on a geographic map? Real spaces and places influence imagined ones—but what about the reverse?
How does fiction borrow from non-fiction, what does it gain from e.g. environmental, historical, or cultural memory studies? And how does nonfiction borrow from fiction—history from story, documentary from myth? What kinds of real-and-imagined hybrids are essays, myths, or journalism?
What role does nonfiction writing play in retelling, if not imagining, reality? How is the boundary between the real and the imagined experienced when teaching and studying (creative) writing?
How does intermediality participate in redefining the boundaries between the real and the imagined? Do social media, digital platforms, and AI shift this boundary?
How do identities and differences, cultural discourses and ideologies operate on the borders of the real and the imagined? What is most timely in the relationship between power and knowledge production? What kinds of structures of power regulate the real and the imagined?

The event opens with an interview of our author guest Jenni Räinä on Wednesday 20.5. at 18:30. The interview is held in the Oulu city library and is open to the public. A workshop for doctoral researchers will be held earlier in the day (CFP to be disseminated separately). The keynote speeches by Rita Felski and Kuisma Korhonen, as well as the presentations and panels, will be held on Thursday and Friday.

The event is organized by the Literary Researchers’ Society (KTS), the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oulu, and the literature discipline in collaboration with partners. We warmly welcome scholars to Oulu, the European Capital of Culture for 2026!