Exploring Estonian Politics and Culture at UniTartu Summer School

Tere! I am Daniela, a major student of theatre and cultural studies at the University of Leipzig in Germany. After doing my Erasmus semester in Tallinn two years ago, I was looking forward to returning to Estonia and exploring the second-biggest city, Tartu. Inspired by the experiences I gained during my first stay in Estonia, I have decided to do my master's thesis on the praxis of positioning as a part of identity politics in the city of Narva, the Estonian border town to Russia.

To pursue my research, I came across the UniTartu Summer School and can now say that the course "The Politics of Popular Culture" (read more here) by Michael Cole was immensely helpful for my academic work. I was lucky to get a scholarship from DAAD*, which enabled me to travel to Estonia and take part in summer school. During the course, we examined cases from the fields of music, sports, street art and food as parts of popular culture, always asking, "How is this political?” In addition to the case studies, our lecturer provided us with some methodological foundations, like working with Critical Discourse Analysis and Multi-modal Discourse Analysis. We spent time in our lecture hall exchanging perspectives and opinions as well as outside to explore the city of Tartu, particularly its rich street art scene.

My highlight was our day trip to Viljandi, the sixth-largest city in the country and centre of Estonian folk music, with the Viljandi Folk Music Festival held every summer. We took a guided tour at the Estonian Traditional Music Centre, followed by a workshop about Estonian Folk Music, where we were invited to try out some traditional instruments ourselves. Apart from the input during our lessons, our course leader, Michael, kindly gave us tips for trips we could take after the course and even sent me some helpful material regarding my thesis topic.

The two weeks in Tartu seemed like a mini express Erasmus to me, living in the dormitory with other international students, quickly forming a community to spend every day together. After class, our days were filled with social activities organised by the amazing team of UniTartu Summer School. Whether we got to know Tartu during the city tour, visited museums, went bowling or took a cruise trip on the river Emajõgi, we always had a great time together. Thank you for organising these lovely events and always helping us with our questions in Tartu.

I recommend everyone to take part in the summer school and visit Tartu, as well as all of Estonia. You will have an amazing time surrounded by lovely people from all over the world in an interesting country you probably knew truly little about before. I fell in love with this country and hope to be back soon!

Suur aitäh!

*DAAD scholarships for summer school are not available anymore.

On the same topic:

• Unique and spectacular journey at UniTartu Summer School by Lucija (read here)
• My unforgettable experience at the UniTartu Summer School 2024 by Stephora (read here)
• Barbora’s quest into studies abroad at Unitartu Summer School by Barbora (read here)
• Great exploration of statehood contestation and borderland during UniTartu Summer School by Gaëlle (read here)