
Anna-Leena Toivanen
Academy Research Fellow
Academy Reserach Fellow, Marie Skłodowska-Curie alumni (Individual Fellowship, Université de Liège), Literary Studies Subject Editor of the Nordic Journal of African Studies.
School of Humanities, Philosophical Faculty
anna-leena.toivanen@uef.fi | +358 50 476 3016
I am a comparative literature scholar interested in adopting a mobility studies approach to literary studies. I currently work as Academy Research Fellow and my project, “The Poetics of Afroeuropean Mobilities in Francophone African Literatures” (project number 330906), examines how Francophone African literatures from the mid-20th century to the present represent forms of human physical travel (pedestrianism, automobility, aeromobility, maritime travel, travel in public transport etc.) in the wider context of different Afroeuropean mobilities: student mobilities, tourism and exploration, professional mobilities, criminal mobilities, return travel, and clandestine travel. The project develops analytical tools for reading mobilities in literature. My book “Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms in African and Afrodiasporic Literatures” was published in March 2021 (Brill): https://brill.com/view/title/57650
Projects
Files
2 itemsPublications
49 items-
Peripheralising the Metropolis: Aeromobile Portrayals of Paris in Francophone African Literatures
Toivanen, Anna-Leena. 2023. Mobility humanities. 2: 78-95 -
Modes of transport and rhythms of mobility in Bernard B. Dadié’s Un Nègre à Paris (1959) and Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s L’Africain du Groenland (1981)
Toivanen, Anna-Leena. 2022. Studies in travel writing. 2021; 25: 504-521 -
Unruly Landscapes of a Diasporic Return: Mobility and Memory in Michèle Rakotoson’s Juillet au pays: Chroniques d’un retour à Madagascar (2007)
Toivanen, Anna-Leena. 2022. Transfers. 12: 70-83 -
Urban Mobilities in Francophone African Return Narratives
Toivanen, Anna-Leena. Teoksessa: Lievel, Ameel(toim.) , 2022. The Routledge Companion to Literary Urban Studies. s. 209-222. Routledge -
A "Migration Novel" Goes Mobile: Novel Review
Toivanen, Anna-Leena; Taylor, Joanna E. 2021. Transfers. 11: 143-147 -
Aeromobilities of diasporic returnees in Francophone African literatures
Toivanen, Anna-Leena. 2021. Mobilities. 16: 597-611 -
Afroeuropean peripheral mobilities in francophone African literatures
Toivanen, Anna-Leena. 2021. Journal of postcolonial writing. 57: 358-371 -
European peripheries in the postcolonial literary imagination
Hauthal, Janine; Toivanen, Anna-Leena. 2021. Journal of postcolonial writing. 57: 291-301 -
Francophone African literary representations of the Paris Metro
Toivanen, Anna-Leena. 2021. USJ Blog. : - -
Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms in African and Afrodiasporic Literatures
Toivanen, Anna-Leena. 2021. Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature. . Brill Rodopi