Job description

I work both as Associate Professor in Philosophy at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway and as senior researcher (docent) in Philosophy at Åbo Akademi University. My research focuses on testimonial literature, memory cultures and historiography. I am one of the founders and leaders of the research centre MYTH, Centre for Research in Memory, Testimony and Historiography (togeteher with Jonas Ahlskog and Natan Elgabsi, at Åbo Akademi University).

Since 2022, I am working as PI in the research project, Muted Memories and Silenced Stories: Memoirs by Women of the Gulag Archipelago, funded by the KONE foundation. The project examines questions of representation, truth and experience in witness literature written by women from the Gulag-Archipelago.

2019-2020, I worked on a post-doctoral research project funded by Östersjöstiftelsen, on memoirs from the Gulag Archipelago written by western survivors. In particular, the project focuses on the question of truth with regard to literature and subjective experiences. Furthermore, it explores the interrelation between experience, literary expression and reality in the case of Gulag memoirs.

I defended my PhD at Uppsala University/Södertörn University 2017. My thesis concerns literature, language and experience in the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In particular, I examine Merleau-Ponty’s reading of Marcel Proust, Paul Valéry and Stendhal in his unpublished course notes from Collège de France 1953-1954. I have transcribed, edited and annotated the course Sur le problème de la parole together with Franck Robert and Emmanuel de Saint Aubert (published at MetisPresses 2020). This research is also partly presented in the book, Mer verklig än verkligheten, published in 2024.

Publications
I. Peer-reviewed original articles

2024. Andén, Lovisa. ”Between Memory and History. Retracing Historical Knowledge through a Phenomenology of Afterlife”, in Jan Patocka and the Phenomenology of Life after Death, ed. Gustav Strandberg and Hugo Strandberg, pp. 139-152. Cham: Springer.

Andén, Lovisa. ”’Berätta för Väst!’. Vittneslitteratur från Gulag-arkipelagen 1945-1953”. Scandia: Tidskrift før historisk forskning, vol. 90 (1), pp. 64-84.

2021. Andén, Lovisa. Literary Testimonies and Fictional Experiences. Gulag Literature between Facts and Fiction. In Studia Phaenomenologica vol. 21/2021. Special Issue: From Witnessing to Testimony, pp. 197-223. Open access

2021. Andén, Lovisa. Being in Language: Merleau-Ponty’s Ontological Examinations of Language at the Collège de France. In Chiasmi International, vol. 23, pp. 303-316.

2021. Andén, Lovisa. Motvilliga vittnen. Svenska vittnesberättelser från utrensningarna i Sovjetkarelen. In Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap. Open access

2019. Andén, Lovisa. Literature and the Expressions of Being in Merleau-Ponty’s Unpublished Course Notes. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 50: 3, pp. 208-219. Open access

 2018. Andén, Lovisa. Language and Tradition in Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl and Saussure. Studia Phaenomenologica, vol. XVIII, pp. 183-205. Open access

II. Monographs

2024. Mer verklig än verkligheten. Fenomenologi och poetik hos Merleau-Ponty, Proust och Stendhal. Stockholm: Appell Förlag.

2017. Andén, Lovisa. Diss., Litteratur och erfarenhet i Merleau-Pontys läsning av Proust, Valéry och Stendhal (Literature and Experience in Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Proust, Valéry and Stendhal). Uppsala: Departement of Philosophy, Uppsala University. Open access

III. Edited Volumes

2020. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Le problème de la parole: cours au Collège de France: notes 1953-1954, ed. Lovisa Andén, Emmanuel de Saint Aubert and Franck Robert. Genève: MētisPresses.

IV. Books And Book Chapters

2025. Andén, Lovisa. Testimonial Literature and the Meaning of the Past: The “Other” Narratives of the Gulag in Women’s Memoirs. In The Phenomenology of Testimony. From Inner Truth to Shared World, ed. Gert-Jan van der Heiden & Paul Marinescu, pp. 162-179. Brill.

2025. Andén, Lovisa. Inför den andres blick: Framträdande och autenticitet hos Shakespeare, Husserl och Merleau-Ponty. In Philosophical Conversations: Essays for Hugo Strandberg, ed. Salla Aldrin Salskov, Natan Elgabsi, Erik Hallstensson, Christoffer Steffansson & Philip Strammer, pp. 93-100. Åbo Akademi University Press.

2021. Andén, Lovisa. Selvbiografier som vitnesbyrd i Simone de Beauvoirs poetikk. I Oppløsningen av det estetiske. Kunstfilosofisk modernitet fra Kant til relasjonell estetikk, pp. 189-205. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

2020. Andén, Lovisa. Avant-propos: Pour une phénoménologie du langage : le primat ontologique de la parole. In Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Le problème de la parole: cours au Collège de France: notes 1953-1954, ed. Lovisa Andén, Emmanuel de Saint Aubert and Franck Robert. Genève: MētisPresses.

V. Other

2023. Andén, Lovisa. Med livet som litteraturens laboratorium: Merleau-Ponty och Proust. Site Zones. 26 Juni 2023. Full-text

2019. Lovisa Andén and Franck Robert. Présentation. Le problème de la parole, extrait de la leçon du 25 février 1954. Proust et la littérature. In Chiasmi International, vol. 21: Merleau-Ponty, la littérature et le langage littéraire, pp. 25-28. DOI: 10.5840/chiasmi2019214

2019. Lovisa Andén and Franck Robert. Introduction: The Problem of Speech. Excerpt from the February 25th Lecture. Proust and Literature, translated by Rajiv Kaushik in Chiasmi International, vol. 21: Merleau-Ponty, la littérature et le langage littéraire, pp. 29-32. DOI: 10.5840/chiasmi2019215

2019. Lovisa Andén and Franck Robert. Introduzione: Le problème de la parole, estratto della lezione del 25 febbraio 1954. Proust e la letteratura, translated by Claudio Rozzoni in Chiasmi International, vol. 21: Merleau-Ponty, la littérature et le langage littéraire, pp. 33-36. DOI: 10.5840/chiasmi2019216

2019. Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Extrait. Proust. Une théorie, – et une pratique concordante, – du langage, ed. Lovisa Andén and Franck Robert. In Chiasmi International, vol. 21: Merleau-Ponty, la littérature et le langage littéraire, pp. 37-43. DOI: 10.5840/chiasmi2019217

2019. Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Excerpt. Proust. A Theory, – and a Concordant Practice, – of Language, ed. Lovisa Andén and Franck Robert, translated by Rajiv Kaushik in Chiasmi International, vol. 21: Merleau-Ponty, la littérature et le langage littéraire, pp. 45-51. DOI: 10.5840/chiasmi2019218

2019. Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Estratto. Proust. Una teoria, – e una pratica concordante, – del linguaggio, ed. Lovisa Andén and Franck Robert, translated by Claudio Rozzoni in Chiasmi International, vol. 21: Merleau-Ponty, la littérature et le langage littéraire, pp. 53-59. DOI: 10.5840/chiasmi2019219

VI. Reviews

2012. Andén, Lovisa. Review of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression. In The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology. Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 341-346. 

VII. Popular Science

2025. Andén, Lovisa. Kan skönlitteraturen vara mer verklig än verkligheten?, In Svensk Filosofi, April 

2022. Andén, Lovisa. “Historisk sanning och litterär representation i vittneslitteratur från Gulagarkipelagen”. In Ikaros – Tidskrift om människan och vetenskapen, vol 22(4), pp. 26-29. Full-text: Full-text

2021. Andén, Lovisa. Vittneslitteratur och det förflutnas närvaro. In Svensk Filosofi, December 2021. Full-text

 2018. Andén, Lovisa. Litteratur och erfarenhet i Merleau-Pontys filosofi. In Salongen, 5th May. Full-text

 2015. Andén, Lovisa. Litteraturen som nyckeln till frihet. In Svenska Dagbladet, Under strecket, 3rd January. Webbpublicering

2014. Andén, Lovisa. Människans revolt och historiens revolutioner. In Dixikon, essä, 2nd February. Full-text

2011. Andén, Lovisa. En oavslutad filosofi; Merleau-Ponty efter 50 år. In Dixikon, essä, 3rd November. Full-text