How do we imagine nature/culture? How do new environments emerge and how do we design them – deliberately or by chance? The 6th Winter School of the Estonian Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts focuses on the notions of “nature” and “culture” as entangled phenomena. Environmental humanities make an effort to overcome the centuries old division between sciences and humanities by stressing that speaking about “nature” and the hybrid forms of naturecultures is of central importance for all disciplines within the humanities.

We invite doctoral and MA students to think beyond the comfortable binaries of nature and culture and to discuss topics like recycling and hybridity, (eco)nationalism and aesthetics, technology and landscape, corporeality and posthumanism, materiality and animality in order to understand the creative power of “nature” as a cultural metaphor and the intimate interconnectedness between environment and culture.

The programme of the Winter School consists of: 1) interdisciplinary lectures and discussions conducted by Estonian and guest lecturers; 2) student seminars and slams where graduate participants present and discuss their own research; 3) student workshops outside the customary classroom environment.

Plenary speakers:
Prof. Harriet Hawkins (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Dr. Dolly Jørgensen (Luleå University of Technology)
Dr. Timothy LeCain (Montana State University)
Dr. Jamie Lorimer (University of Oxford)
Prof. Gregg Mitman (University of Wisconsin – Madison / Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society)
Prof. David Moon (University of York)
Prof. Kate Soper (London Metropolitan University)
Dr. Bronislaw Szerszynski (Lancaster University)

Hosting institutions:
School of Humanities, Tallinn University
Estonian Centre for Environmental History, Tallinn University

Programme directors:
Prof. Ulrike Plath (Tallinn University / Estonian Academy of Sciences)
Prof. Marek Tamm (Tallinn University)

Programme manager:
Doris Feldmann (Tallinn University), e-mail

Slam and student seminar coordinator:

Tiiu-Triinu Tamm (Tallinn University), e-mail