Charlotte Doesburg

Dr. Charlotte Doesburg is a Leverhulme Trust Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Faculty of Music, University of Oxford, where her current project examines identity negotiations by metal music artists from Finnish and Russian Karelia through folklore, language, culture, and history in their musical expressions.

Her academic background includes:

• PhD from University College London (UCL), 2022
• Master’s in Finnish language and culture from the University of Helsinki, 2016
• Undergraduate in Finno-Ugric languages and cultures from the University of Groningen, 2014

Her research spans popular music, subcultures, folklore, Finno-Ugric languages, identity negotiations, and cultural adaptation, with notable emphasis on metal music’s reinterpretation of Baltic-Finnish folk poetry like the Kalevala epic. She investigates how artists leverage historical narratives—including 17th-century famines—and contemporary folklore to construct national and regional identities, while also exploring gender representation and humor in digital folk communities.

Analysis of her publications reveals a cohesive interdisciplinary trajectory bridging musicology, cultural studies, and linguistics, with recurring themes of historical trauma in Nordic contexts and the sociocultural significance of multilingualism in metal. Her recent expansion into feline cultural studies demonstrates methodological versatility across humanities disciplines.

Her scientific recognition includes:

• Leverhulme Trust Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

During her doctoral studies at UCL, she served as a postgraduate teaching assistant for sociology, history, and Finnish culture modules. Her research is exclusively funded by the Leverhulme Trust fellowship, with no indication of prior major grants. She actively engages in academic knowledge mobilization through conference co-organization and public-facing media.

She co-founded interdisciplinary initiatives including conferences on multilingualism in metal music and the cultural significance of cats—latter developed with Senate House Library—demonstrating leadership in niche scholarly communities beyond traditional laboratory settings.