Sari Kivistö

I work at Tampere University as an Academy Professor (2026–2031) and as Professor of Comparative Literature. 

I currently lead three research projects: The Verses of Learning (VERSITAS, 2026–2031), the subproject Suffering and Meliorism in Literature and the Philosophy of Literature within the RCF Centre of Excellence Melioristic Philosophy of Suffering (MePhiS, 2026–2033), and Literary Extinction: Lost Literary Genres and Imagining the Past (Kone Foundation, 2023–2026). 

My research areas include:

• literary history
• classical traditions
• Latin and Neo-Latin literature
• interdisciplinary literary studies, especially literature in relation to natural history, philosophy, medicine, and religion
• historical (and lost) poetic genres
• the history and theory of satire
• Latin dissertations
• the history of rhetoric
• the history of translation
• epistemic vices
• suffering, meliorism, and antitheodicy in literature

I am a member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters and the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. Previously, I have worked, among other positions, as an Academy Research Fellow of the Academy of Finland (2009–2014) and at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies as a Core Research Fellow (2004–2009), Deputy Director (2010–2015), and Director (2015–2016). I am Docent of Comparative Literature at the University of Helsinki.

My publications focus widely on interdisciplinary literary studies, literary history, classical traditions, satire studies, and Neo-Latin literature. My publication list includes over one hundred scholarly articles, more than twenty academic monographs or edited volumes, and dozens of popular-science writings. My books include:

• Kadonneet kirjallisuuden lajit (Lost Literary Genres, co-authored with K. Kärkelä, E. Pihl, and I. Välimäki, 2026), presenting 30 literary genres lost from literary history.
• Unohtuneet kirjoitukset: katoaminen kirjallisuushistoriassa (Forgotten Texts: Disappearance in Literary History, ed. with K. Kärkelä, E. Pihl, and I. Välimäki, 2025), a publication of our Literary Extinction project examining forms of forgetting in literary history. Open access.
• Critical Distance: Ethical and Literary Engagements with Detachment, Isolation, and Otherness (with S. Pihlström, 2023), analysing the ethical significance of critical distance through themes such as empathy, the pandemic, and love.
• Toista ajatellen: Historiallisia ja kulttuurisia näkökulmia toiseuden kohtaamiseen (Thinking of the Other, with S. Pihlström, 2022), exploring—by integrating literary studies, intellectual history, and philosophy—what constitutes a cultivated and respectful way of encountering different forms of otherness. Open access.
• Neo-Latin Verse Satire, ca. 1500–1800: An Ethical Approach (2022), analysing the traditions, themes, and forms of early modern Latin verse satire from an ethical perspective. Open access.
• Jobista Orwelliin: Kärsimys kirjallisuudessa (From Job to Orwell: Suffering in Literature, 2020), examining rewritings of the Book of Job in later literature, the absurdity of suffering, pain and language, and moral emotions.
• Lucubrationes Neolatinae: Readings of Neo-Latin Dissertations and Satires (2018), a collected volume addressing, among other topics, sympathy, laughter, bird utopias, plagiarism, forgeries, apotheosis, and poetic monuments in Latin dissertations and satires.
• Sivistyksen puolustus (In Defence of Bildung, with S. Pihlström, 2018), discussing the conditions of possibility of academic life and changing conceptions of intellectual culture.
• Kantian Antitheodicy: Philosophical and Literary Varieties (with S. Pihlström, 2016), addressing the idea of antitheodicy—the immorality of justifying suffering—in philosophy and literature.
• The Vices of Learning: Morality and Knowledge in Early Modern Universities (2014), examining epistemic vices such as pride, ambition, quarrelling, and curiosity in the context of early modern universities.
• Satiiri Suomessa (Satire in Finland, with H. K. Riikonen, 2012), providing an overview of the history of Finnish satire from seventeenth-century Vyborg to contemporary media satire.
• Medical Analogy in Latin Satire (2009), analysing medical analogies in literature, especially the role of disease in moral debate, satire as therapy and catharsis, and paradoxical praises of illness in the early modern period.

In collaboration with colleagues from various disciplines, I have also edited over a dozen volumes, including works on ancient literature and culture (Kirjallisuus antiikin maailmassa, 2007; Kulttuuri antiikin maailmassa, 2009; Mitä jokaisen tulee tietää antiikista: Kreikka & Rooma, 2013), satire (Satiiri, 2007, 2.ed. 2010), scandals in art and politics (Skandaali!, 2011), the history of ornithology (Suomen lintutieteen synty: Turun Akatemian aika, 2009), economics (Kirjallisuus ja talous, 2011; Talous ja moraali, 2016), mimesis (Rethinking Mimesis, 2012), and death (Kuoleman kulttuurit Suomessa, 2014; Death in Literature, 2014).