The course aims to enhance understanding of the impact of cultural memory and its institutionalisation on contemporary discourse in the Baltic Sea region. It will offer seminars on the cultural memory as a scholarly field, on the narratives of East and West in the region and on the institutions that conserve the past or construct new horizons of expectations and identities. These transdisciplinary phenomena will be studied by observing the interplay of past and present in socio-cultural contexts of the Baltic Sea region countries. The course will aim to critically examine how the memory and the history of a certain place or space serve to form a cultural identity; or, indeed, how memory gives us an understanding of culture as such. In this course, we will offer students a wide variety of approaches to learn about the interplay between the geographical position of the region and its cultural memory. In particular, we will focus on the discourses of East and West and centre-periphery relations as frames that have been instrumental for conceiving narratives of the region as a borderland. We will look at the way that cultural, geographical and political maps and discourses that discerned and separated Eastern from Western Europe have affected not only the very history of the region, but also its understanding of the interrelation of past and present.
The summer school will feature lecturers and keynote speakers from Södertörn, Gdańsk and other universities in the region. The actual learning process will be enhanced by travel from Stockholm to Gdansk, teaching in action and involvement of students in the learning process based on small study groups. The course will also include leisure time activities, trips and guided tours. Doctoral students who are conducting their studies or research in the humanities or in the social sciences are encouraged to enrol in the summer school.
The course is organized by Södertörn University’s Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) and the School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University in partnership with University of Gdansk, European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk, University of Greifswald, Saint Petersburg University of Economics (UNECON), University of Tartu and Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas.

Registration for the summer school begins 20 March and ends 20 April 2017, according to the following procedures:
Only doctoral students may apply and they are exempted from registration and tuition fees. To register for the summer school, proof of PhD-program admission/enrolment and a statement of intent (300-500 words) should be submitted to cbss-su2017[at]sh.se. For all PhD-students accepted to the summer school, housing can be provided. The organisers will make an effort to offer bursary for successful applicants who are unable to finance their participation in the Summer University. Please indicate this in your application.

For more information, please see the links below or contact the course administrators by writing to: cbss-su2017[at]sh.se

Transfer from Stockholm to Gdansk is planned by a ferry.

Third Cycle Syllabus: http://www.sh.se/p3/ext/res.nsf/vRes/cbees_engelsk_1432820959434_thirdcycle_syllabus_the_cultural_memory_of_europe_pdf/$File/thirdcycle_syllabus_the_cultural_memory_of_europe.pdf