WINTER/HIVER
2023 – WELCOME TO/BIENVENUE À “THREE-MINUTE EUROPE”
This year, 19 intrepid Seattle University students will be exploring the nooks and crannies of the Eurovision Song Contest to see what gems they can find. They’re studying for degrees in subjects all across the university – nursing, engineering, business, social sciences, interdisciplinary fields – and are mostly in their first year of study.
For the first time since 2020, we’re starting Winter Quarter
back in person, and the enthusiasm is palpable. At the same time, we’re also
very conscious that we’re exploring the world of Eurovision when one of its
star participants of the last 20 years – Ukraine – has been invaded by Russia and
continues to defend its territory, people, and culture.
The students are all taking this first-year humanities
inquiry seminar as part of Seattle U’s Core Curriculum – a general education
program that provides all undergraduates a taste of different fields of
inquiry.
For the ten weeks of the course, each student will explore a
different country participating in the Eurovision Song Contest over the last
ten or so years. This year those countries are in central, eastern, and southeastern
participants in the contest.
Students will be posting their assignments as individual
country blogs, each of which will be linked from this central site.
A public blog format is the chance for students to have a
real audience. We would love it if any of you who are either Eurovision fans
or are just Eurovision-curious would check out the students’ work and offer
kind and constructive feedback. Students have the opportunity to revise two
written blog posts, so your feedback could really help them expand their knowledge
and understanding, as well as honing their skills as communicators.
This year, students have chosen following countries to
study, organized into five peer groups that will provide each other feedback
and support. (We'll be adding URLs to their sites as soon as they're available.)
EAST
ARM Armenia | AZE Azerbaijan | GEO Georgia | UKR Ukraine
EAST-CENTRAL
BGR Bulgaria | CZE Czechia | ROU Romania
NORTH
EST Estonia | POL
Poland | LTU Lithuania | LVA Latvia
SOUTH
ALB Albania | CYP
Cyprus | ISR Israel | MLT Malta
SOUTH-CENTRAL
MNE Montenegro | MKD North Macedonia | SRB Serbia | SLV Slovenia
We look forward to your ideas, suggestions, links, and above all, encouragement. And if you have any thoughts or questions about this project and course as a whole, please drop us a line below in the comments.
