New Approaches to Teaching Nordic and Baltic Lives

The project aims to advance the teaching of life writing and memory studies – an area that is either absent or modestly represented in the curricula of participating institutions yet constitutes a well-established international research field with high Nordic and Baltic visibility. The project brings together outstanding competencies from different disciplinary backgrounds (history and cultural history, ethnology, literary studies, folklore studies, and creative writing) with experience in innovative interdisciplinary research, teaching, and archival work. Partners include university departments with a degree of previous teaching experience in the field (University of Tartu, University of Uppsala, University of Turku, University of Iceland), those with no prior experience (University of Liepaja, University of Vilnius, Kaunas Faculty) and research institutes with outstanding competencies that have not yet been integrated into teaching (Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia; The Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore). The project will be realized via a) the teaching of an intensive course taught by a team of internationally renowned Nordic and Baltic scholars that provides overview of current research foci, data, and source collection methods in the field, among them novel digital methods (digital archiving and data processing) and creative approaches (poetic ethnography, creative life writing). B) network activities that are targeted at developing teaching methods that support teaching fitting the needs of the area in Nordic and Baltic countries and integrate novel research and teaching methods into teaching.