Thematic Sessions

Main Topic: Multiple Baltics

The Baltic has always been characterized as a historical region, which evokes a sense of belonging, from processes of inclusion and exclusion and addresses the response to political challenges, crises, conflicts, peace-keeping, and wars. Such a spatial imaginary as “Baltic” takes the form of textual, visual or performative representations shaping identities by homogenizing space.

The first mention of the Baltic Sea in its Latin form, mare Balticum, is found in Adam of Bremen's (1050-1085) chronicle “Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum” and still applies to the historical region. In a temporalized space, spatial imaginaries establish imagined communities (Benedict Anderson) with stable or shifting social structures, networks, along with such created dichotomies – centre versus periphery, presence and absence, civilized versus uncivilized – and created spaces of trade, culture, places of memory, places of knowledge, places of protest.

Practically too often, spatial imaginaries are taken for granted, their assumptions and intentions left unquestioned. The desire to think of the history of the Baltics as homogeneous and determined in time and space could be misleading. Historian Michael North speaks of many Baltics: “There is no such thing as a single Baltic. Rather, there are many Baltics, which, from Adam of Bremen to Björn Engholm and the Baltic Sea strategy of the EU, have been constantly reinvented and reconstituted by trade and cultures and by the merchants and artists who have embodied these historical trends.”

Spatial imaginaries coexist with other research fields like architecture, intellectual history, imperial history, cultural history, literature, and media studies. We invite seminar participants to explore and analyze the construction and meaning of imaginary Baltics on different scales, including micro and macro historical scales, across time and space.

Explore Our Thematic Sessions

Discover the three main themes of the seminar, each represented by an icon below.

Digital History

Digital History: Spatial and Social Aspects of the Baltic History

Will cover digital analysis methods and tools that are suitable for historical research, while providing context on spatial and social history aspects in the Baltic Sea region. Workshop participants will be invited to discuss how digital history research methods can enrich existing academic research methods in history and interpret data in the humanities. Participants will learn about various digital methods suitable for historical research and experience gentle touch of programming. Additionally, try digital tools suitable for spatial historical analysis (e.g., QGIS or Gephi). The workshops will also focus on handwriting and its recognition platform Transkribus, and participants will be trained in how to work with the document collections of the National Archives of Latvia’s Latvian State Historical Archive.

Critical Cultural Heritage

Narratives, Conflicts, and Transformations in the Context of the Baltics

Students will be invited to critically examine how cultural heritage is represented, discussed, and communicated in the Baltic region. Changing historical narratives that construct society's collective understanding of a shared past will be examined. Participants will have the opportunity to acquire cross-cutting and academic skills such as study project planning, communicating research results, and countering misinformation about existing historical myths in society. The complex cultural heritage will be viewed in an urban environment. The program includes a workshop in which, in collaboration with the project “ Critical History Tours” (funded by EU), participants will be introduced to a newly developed methodology for creating multifaceted and thematic guides to the complex and sometimes uncomfortable cultural heritage of the urban environment, as well as create new or improve existing city tour programs. In another workshop, participants will learn about an audio guide development project and discuss the study and reflection of historical memory in the wider society.

PhD Workshop

Organised by ISHA PhD & Training Committee.

An essential and integral part of ISHA seminars since 2015, will enable participants to transfer academic and cross-cutting skills such as developing a doctoral work plan, a strategic approach to mobility planning, public speaking, leading group discussions, providing feedback, including the development of academic skills such as academic writing, lecture planning, and structuring scientific articles in academic publications indexed in internationally recognized databases. The content of the workshop is tailored to the current interests of doctoral students based on the information received in the applications. a.