CBSS Summer University 2020

Please note that due to the developing situation of the global efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 the timing of the summer universities is flexible. We will update our channels as soon as more information is available.

Two programmes have been approved for the ongoing CBSS Summer University partnership. Have a look at what they have to offer!

University of Tartu (Estonia): The Baltic / Nordic Regionalisms in a Post-liberal Europe

The University of Tartu, together with the Universites of Jyväskylä (Finland), Linköping (Sweden), The Arctic University of Norway and Evangelic Academy in Loccum (Germany) are holding a summer programme that will critically discuss the main concepts that after the end of the Cold War shaped the emergence and development of discourses and policy practices of regionalism in the Baltic and Nordic Europe. The repertoire of topics traces the genealogies of the ideas of region-making/region-building back to the 1990s, and identify both liberal and post-modern(ist) roots of many of them. The sessions and panels will scrutinise the concepts of cross-/trans-border regionalism, regional security complexes, de-bordering, regional networking, city twinning, as well as soft security and ‘asecurity’ as applied to the regional international society. Invited lecturers are expected to discuss whether all of them lived up to the expectations.

Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) and European Humanities University (Lithuania): Nuclear Tourism in Postsoviet Sites

Vytautas Magnus University and the European Humanities University offer a multidisciplinary exploration of the phenomenon of Nuclear Tourism through a case study of Visaginas – a satellite town of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. The world has recently been shaken by a dramatized TV rendering of the aftermath of the explosion at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Most of the scenes of the series were filmed in Lithuania: Kaunas, Vilnius and Visaginas, a counterpart of Prypiat – while not as tragic in its destiny, it is a reminder that the tragedy was possible in this setting as well. Visaginas is a unique phenomenon in terms of its history, ethnic composition and challenges to its identity. It is also located in the picturesque part of Lithuania, surrounded by lush forests and lakes. The town has been facing a challenge of redefining its identity after decision was made to close the Nuclear Power Plant. With the town trying to turn from monoindustrial economy to a cultural tourism destination, it has to face many new and already existing challenges: proper representation of multi-ethnic cultural identities, the role of commodification and self-exoticizing, power relations, community engagement. Dominant official and local discourses shaping politics of identity and memory in Lithuania tend to eliminate those parts of memory and identity which refer to the Soviet past. These dominant discourses create obstacles performing authentic multi-ethnic identities in Visaginas, while also creating place identity to develop socialist heritage tourism.