People and Partnerships

Dr. Ozols is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Haifa, specializing in the discursive
practices of state actors in the Islamic and Christian domains and their intersections with secular
discourses.

The PhD thesis explored the semiotics of colonialism through a case study of a literary corpus,
analyzing representations of 19th-century German colonialism within the territory of modern
Latvia, alongside comparative analyses of ''Orientalism''—the colonial desire of the West towards
the East.

The academic profile is complemented by language studies in Persian, elementary Hindi,
French, German, and Russian, alongside experience as a lecturer in linguistics and
communication studies.

His scholarly work includes publications on socialization practices in Latvian literature, urban
semiotics and depictions of urban space, and the role of cultural diplomacy. An ERASMUS PhD
traineeship at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies at the Tartu University (Estonia) has
been completed, focussing on the Influence of Russian (Soviet) politics on the Orthodox mission
in Jerusalem.

Dr. Ozols’ current work primarily involves methods drawn from the semiotic theories of Y.
Lotman (Tartu semiotic school) and Umberto Eco's interpretive semiotics. These approaches
are integrated with tools from the sociology of religion, critical discourse analysis, and narrative
studies. This interdisciplinary methodological framework serves his analysis of the interplay
between political narratives, whereby Jerusalem features as a symbol and as an imagined and
actual space.