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1 - 5 September 2025 | University of Tartu
Explore the urgent intersection of storytelling, environment, and regional identity in this immersive 5-day course designed for BA and MA students. Focusing on eco-critical approaches to narratives across literature, film, visual arts, and digital media, the course invites participants to engage critically with how ecological themes are represented, challenged, and reimagined in the Nordic and Baltic cultural landscapes.
Through a dynamic mix of lectures, seminars, and group workshops, students will examine narratives shaped by climate change, indigenous perspectives, land and sea relationships, and environmental justice. The course emphasizes comparative analysis across national and media boundaries, encouraging participants to develop their own critical voice and interdisciplinary research skills.
Led by international scholars and regional experts, this intensive program offers a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in contemporary eco-critical thought while connecting with peers from across Europe. Whether you’re interested in environmental humanities, media studies, or cultural theory, this course provides a powerful platform for exploration, debate, and creativity.
Join us for a transformative week of critical thinking and collaboration, where nature meets narrative in the North.
Details at a glance
Dates of the event:
1 - 5 September, 2025
Volume of credits:
3 - 5 ECTS
Study level:
MA and BA students
Scholarship for travel and accommodation
Language of instruction:
English
.
Programme
> September 1st - Monday
10.00 - 10.30 | Welcome and kickoff: welcome and greetings from the head of department
10.30 - 11.30 | Introduction: Eco-Critical Approaches to Narratives across Media: A Nordic Perspective, students’ self introduction
11.30 - 13.00 | Lunch (offered by the course organisers): Ülikooli Kohvik - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
13.00 - 14.30 | Niklas Salmose: Intermedial Ecocriticism, Eco-Narratives, and the Anthropocene
14.30 - 15.00 | Coffee Break (offered by the course organisers) Ülikooli Kohvik - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
15.00 - 16.30 | Erik Erlanson: The National Park as a Qualified Narrative Medium
18.30 - 21.00 | Reception (offered by the course organisers): DRINKGELD - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
> September 2nd - Tuesday
10.30 - 12.00 | Marina Grishakova: The Difficulty of Imagining Other Umwelts: Imagination and Ecological Justice
12.00 - 13.30 | Lunch (offered by the course organisers) Ülikooli Kohvik - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
13.30 - 15.00 | Juha Raipola: Climate Storytelling on Social Media
15.00 - 15.30 | Coffee Break (offered by the course organisers) Ülikooli Kohvik - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
15.30 - 17.30 | Seminar: Media affordances for Representing Environmental Issues
> September 3rd - Wednesday
10.30 - 12.00 | Hanna Samola: Plants in Nordic literature
12.00 - 14.00 | Lunch (offered by the course organisers) Ülikooli Kohvik - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
14.00 - 15.00 | Discussion: Curating Eco-Critical Art
15.00 - 15.30 | Coffee Break (offered by the course organisers) Ülikooli Kohvik - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
15.30 - 17.30 | Silvia Kurr: Waste and Intermediality in Film
> September 4th - Thursday
10.30 - 12.00 | Lieven Ameel: Future Visions of Eco-Catastrophe in Nordic Cities and Nordic Post-Welfare States
12.00 - 13.30 | Lunch (offered by the course organisers) Ülikooli Kohvik - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
13.30 - 15.00 | Group Visit and Open discussion: "Momentary Organisms" Exhibition and Eco-Critical Narratives across media
15.00 - 15.30 | Coffee Break (offered by the course organisers) Ülikooli Kohvik - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
15.30 - 17.30 | Francesca Arnavas: Fantastic Creatures of the Nordic Tradition and Eco-Critical Posthumanity
18.30 | Dinner (offered by the course organisers): Kolm Tilli Restaurant - Kastani tn 42, 50410 Tartu
> September 5th - Friday
10.00 - 11.00 | Mattia Bellini: Introduction to the workshop - Digitally Representing the Ecological Crisis
11.00 - 12.00 | Workshop: Designing Ecocritical Interactive Narratives
12.00 - 13.30 | Lunch (offered by the course organisers) Ülikooli Kohvik - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
13.30 - 15.00 | Workshop: Designing Ecocritical Interactive Narratives
15.00 - 15.30 | Coffee Break (offered by the course organisers) Ülikooli Kohvik - Ülikooli tn 20, 51007 Tartu
15.30 - 16.30 | Workshop: Designing Ecocritical Interactive Narratives
16.30 - 17.00 | Closing
A 5-DAY INTENSIVE COURSE FOR EXPLORING STORYTELLING AND THE ENVIRONMENT.
Venue
University of Tartu
Room 115
Von Bock House
Ülikooli tn 16, 51003 Tartu
Estonia
A NORDIC PERSPECTIVE ON ECO-CRITICISM AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN MEDIA.
Instructors
Francesca Arnavas
University of Tartu
Research Fellow
Francesca Arnavas is a Research Fellow and Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Tartu. She works within the research group Narrative, Culture and Cognition. She also serves as Funding Officer for the British Association of Victorian Studies. She has researched and published on fantasy fiction, Victorian literature, cognitive narratology, and literary Victorian and postmodern fairy tales. Her recent research focuses on the role of weater and water-related mythological creatures in shaping epistemological concerns and on their manifestations in the literary context.
Marina Grishakova
University of Tartu
Professor
Marina Grishakova is Chair Professor of Literary Theory and Intermedial Studies at the University of Tartu. Her scholarly interests include theories and philosophy of literature, cognitive aesthetics, narratology, intermediality and interart studies, and the history of ideas and concepts in the humanities in the 20th century. Her current work focuses on complexity and theories of representation. She is also interested in the role of fiction and imagination as heuristic and exploratory tools. She has been, and is still, chair or member of the steering and advisory boards of many professional associations, journals and book series, and has given a multitude of guest lectures in various universities across Europe.
Mattia Bellini
University of Tartu
Research Assistant
Mattia Bellini is Research Assistant at the University of Tartu, in the research group Narrative, Culture, and Cognition. He serves as a board member and Membership Officer of the Association for Research in Digital Interactive Narratives. He is also a member of two expert boards contributing to policy-making for the European Commission. His research explores complexity, humanistic human-computer interaction, interactive digital narratives for social good, and cognitive approaches to video game studies.
Silvia Kurr
Linnaeus University
Postdoctoral Researcher
Silvia Kurr is Postdoctoral Researcher at Linnaeus University and the University of Tartu. She has published on the intermedial relations between literature, painting, and film. Her research interests include intermedial studies, ekphrasis, new materialisms, and ecocriticism.
Erik Erlanson
Linnaeus University
Associate Senior Lecturer
Erik Erlanson is associate senior lecturer at the Department of Film and Literature at Linnaeus University. His research is concerned with the function of literature, considered as a name for a diverse set of semiotic practices, relates to environmental issues, media landscapes, and the changing values of life.
Niklas Salmose
Linnaeus University
Professor
Niklas Salmose is a Professor of English and he is currently Vice-Chair of the Department of Languages at Linnaeus University. He has published and presented internationally on nostalgia, Nordic noir, Hitchcock, cinematic style in fiction, modernism, the Anthropocene and Hollywood, animal horror, intermediality and sensorial aesthetics in fiction. Recently he has worked within the broad field of environmental humanities.
Lieven Ameel
Tampere University
Senior Lecturer
Lieven Ameel is senior lecturer in comparative literature at Tampere University. He works on urban futures across textual genres, uncertain ontologies in 21st c literature, narrated experiences of space, rhetorical structures in urban planning, place names in literature, representations of shorelines, and parkour, among others. He specialise in American literature of the long 20th century, Finnish and Nordic literature, as well as the literature of the Low Countries (Netherlands & Belgium), spanning across different genres.
Juha Raipola
Tampere University
Lecturer
Juha is a lecturer and independent scholar. He holds a PhD in Finnish Literature, and has a wide interest in storytelling and narratives in different media both inside and outside of fiction. He is fascinated by the shadowy recesses of the human psyche and the boundless energy of huggable puppies.
Hanna Samola
Tampere University
Senior Lecturer
Hanna Samola is university lecturer in Finnish literature at Tampere University and docent in Finnish literature at the University of Turku. She focuses on genre studies, intertextual and intermedial studies, critical plant studies and fairy tale studies.
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