TEACHING NORDIC AND BALTIC LIVES

Nordplus Higher Education network Teaching Nordic and Baltic Lives (2021-2023; 2024-2025) seeks to advance the teaching of life writing and memory studies – a well-established international research field with high Nordic and Baltic visibility that is modestly represented in or absent from the curricula of participating institutions. Project partners represent a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds (history and cultural history, ethnology, literary studies, folklore studies, and creative writing) and teaching
and research competencies, including novel approaches and teaching methods that have high potential of diversifying and enriching teaching in the field and in the humanities in general.

Partners include university departments with some previous teaching experience in the field (University of Tartu, University of Uppsala, University of Turku, University of Iceland), those with no previous 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).

Project activities include INTENSIVE COURSES, taught by a team of internationally renowned Nordic and Baltic scholars that provides insights into current and most topical research foci, data, and source collection methods in the field, among different creative approaches (poetic ethnography, creative life writing) and establishing a NETWORK for sharing teaching experience and best practices and supporting the integration of novel research and teaching methods in the field of life writing and memory studies into teaching. The first INTENSIVE COURSE took place in June 2023, the next one is scheduled for April 2025.