Tallinn Winter School 2010

Tallinn Winter School 2010 at a Glance

In January 2010, Tallinn Summer School will embark on a new initiative – Tallinn Winter School.

As Tallinn Summer Schools differ from other schools because as well as presenting the best Estonian specialists, offering Estonian language lessons at the highest level and introducing participants to the finest aspects of our local culture, we also integrate a wide range of internationally acclaimed academics, opinion leaders and intellectuals into our winter school programme.

Tallinn Summer and Winter Schools don't only aim to offer opportunities to the best faculty members from various disciplines, by far the most important aspect is to bring together a diverse array of students from all over the world to stimulate and encourage innovative discussion and debate.
In summer 2009, thirty-five separate countries were represented, bringing together 205 students attending 11 subject-specific courses.

Our two schools have a rather unusual setting – the key to this is the university’s attitude towards education in general. The ambience is always friendly and relaxed; however, focusing on a rigorous scholastic approach and an acceptance of a wide diversity of opinions is part of the experience. Every year we revise and develop our programme in order to include new and relevant topics. For example, in 2009 the Summer School explored the theme of Everyday Life: what strategies and approaches to social life exist, what networks and daily rhythms, and what common qualities and aspects of context and of background noise play their part?

In summer 2010, the theme of the school will be globalisation. The notion of globalisation defines the current process by which regional economies, societies and cultures have become integrated through global interdependence.

The very first Tallinn Winter School will have five courses in 2010 – intensive language courses in Estonian, Russian and English, and two workshops – painting and filmmaking. These will be supplemented by an exciting cultural and social events programme. The language of instruction is English and all courses last three weeks (except the one-week painting course).

The school starts with an (optional) cultural trip to St Petersburg on 30 December 2009 and the main study programmes kick off in Tallinn on 4 January 2010.