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Shifting Expectations

Bodies, Violence, Gender Roles: Shifting Expectations of Clerical Behaviour in Medieval Scandinavia

My doctoral project focuses on the expectations of clerical behaviour, largely dictated by canon law and ecclesiastical discourse of the time. While certain desirable behaviours and lifestyles for members of the clergy were known and promoted by the Scandinavian church from its beginnings, there are numerous accounts of clerical misconduct, regular breaches of canon law and even long-term disregard for certain conventions. The reaction of the papacy and papal legates to these incidents varied from time to time, and at times there was even tolerance of clerical behaviour that was explicitly contrary to canon law.

- Olga Syrova, 22.11.2025

The Coastal Town as a Topos in the Norwegian Novel of the Late 19th Century

A significant proportion of the authors we associate with the Modern Breakthrough in Norway (Bjørnson, Ibsen, Kielland, Lie, Skram, Garborg), seem to make use of the coast town, and other communities along the Norwegian coast, as literary settings. Few literary scholars have commented on why this particular spatial object gains influence. This leads me to ask: Who took part and helped shape the literary-geographical imaginary of the coast-town? Was it shaped also by non-canonized, ‘forgotten’ authors? Is there a special connection between ideology and form on the one hand, and the figure of the coast-town on the other?

- Olga Syrova, 22.11.2025

Shattered Expectations: The construction of narrative meaning in a shared reading group for informal caregivers

Informal caregivers often experience expectancy violations when caring for loved ones. The experience of becoming an informal caregiver may for example challenge their expectations of themselves as caregivers and expectations regarding their own future. This thesis aims to investigate these schema violations as prominent themes in contemporary Scandinavian caregiving fiction.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Pandemic Role Models, Negative Pioneers and World Champions. The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Journalistic Spatial Narratives for the Cases of Sweden and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

This project focused on the corona pandemic as a turning point for public narratives about the Baltic Sea Region. Based on a corpus of German newspaper articles covering the pandemic, it investigated how the public perception of Sweden and the federal state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has changed under the influence of the current crisis.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

From Pariah to Partner? Shifting Narratives about Swedish Right-wing Populists

This project examines how the way established parties in Sweden referred to the right-wing populist party Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats) has changed between 2010 and 2024, thereby highlighting the agency of mainstream political actors in determining what ideas and discourses are deemed acceptable.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Health as a Happy Ending? Potentials of a Narratological Interpretation of the Concept of Disease Using the Example of the Conceptions of Disease and Health before and after the Accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany

The project contributes to the philosophical research on the concepts of health and disease systematically as well as historically. The application of the narratological concept of peripety to the interpretation of ‘disease’ aims at extending and clarifying the complex medico-philosophical debate. Viewing definitions of disease as instances of peripeties enables me to craft a heuristic that is adequate to analyse these definitions with regard to their underlying narrativity. That way recently developed narratological approaches that are gaining popularity within the field of medical humanities are put in relation with the broader philosophical debate.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Adaptation – Konstruktion – Narration. Untersuchungen zur finnischen Musikfachsprache aus historischer, struktureller und diskurslinguistischer Perspektive

In the Finnish special language of music, specifically ‘Finnish’ linguistic characteristics and elements are mixed and/or interfere with ‘translated’ features and terminology (prominently of German origin). The resulting special language with its subdivisions (minilects) is not merely a technical language or LSP, but it reflects the cultural narratives related to the meaning of (classical) music as a core element of the Finnish national self-image.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025