Dr. des. Victoria Oertel

Victoria Oertel currently finished her PhD-Thesis as a doctoral fellow at the University of Greifswald, Department of Philosophy within the international research training group  “Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes”. Since 2021 she holds an educational degree in Fine Arts and Philosophyfrom the University of Greifswald. Topic of Exam Paper: David Enochs metanormativer Realismus: Analyse und Kritik.

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 German Democratic Republic 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.

The theoretical research will be accompanied by the historical survey, which will be used as a means of proof for the appropriateness of my heuristic based on peripety. It examines definitions of disease in philosophy of medicine in Germany before, during and after the German reunification. The strong ideological and political narratives in the former GDR and their vanishing during the reunification process provide an interesting case of a grand sociopolitical peripety influencing other areas of human conduct – such as the understanding of what a disease is.