Maria Engström promoted to Professor in Russian

2020-12-15

Modern languages’ Maria Engström has been promoted to Professor in Russian, after a decision by the vice-chancellor. Maria Engström is an international authority on neo-conservatism in contemporary Russian culture and politics.

Maria Engström’s research has been geographically focused on Russia, but it has had a wide reach when it comes to topics and time. In her PhD studies, Engström studied the medieval Russian Orthodox literary, theological and visual tradition and how the Byzantine culture has been received in Russia. In her thesis, which was based on literary studies, the history of ideas, linguistic history and also orthodox theology, she compared a large number of medieval texts with the 17th-century versions and she was able to demonstrate how they had changed linguistically, rhetorically and theologically.

Following her PhD studies, Maria Engström has studied contemporary phenomena with two main orientations. She has studied the post-Soviet orthodox culture and the relation with the church and she has analysed the neoconservative ideology and how it is expressed in the culture. But although she has moved to a different time, Engström has continued to have an interdisciplinary approach, using linguistics, culture history, history of ideas, theology and political science in her research.

Maria Engström has close to a hundred publications in the digital scholarly archive (Diva). The list ranges from articles that have been published in scholarly journals and conferences, contributions to anthologies and conferences, and a book. Maria Engström has also made the results of her research available to a greater audience through articles in newspapers and other periodicals. She has additionally taken part in organising many international and national conferences, she has initiated an international research network and she is active in several international research groups. Her new book “Efter ikonen: kyrkan, konsten och politiken i dagens Ryssland” (“After the Icon: The church, art and politics in today’s Russia”) will be published in 2021.

Maria Engström’s research projects have received funding from e.g. the Swedish Research Council, among them the recently completed project “Visuality without Visibility: Queer Visual Culture in Post-Soviet Russia”, 2017-2019.

In 2021, the department’s most recent Professor will start a new research project, which is also funded by the Swedish Research Council: “No(w)stalgia of Modernity: Neo-Soviet Myth in Contemporary Russian Culture and Politics”

So, what is the plan for the future? “As a promoted Professor I want to continue to contribute to the interdisciplinary work and the internationalisation of the department”, answers Maria Engström “I am also actively working to create a lively national research environment that includes both senior researchers and PhD students.”

Maria Engström’s profile page

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Last modified: 2021-09-14