The nation on the Eurovision stage

Hello from Seattle!

It’s time for our final blog posts. This time we’ve each chosen one Eurovision performance from each of our countries and have been exploring how to analyze those. Sometimes that’s about discussing elements of the song and staging – choreo, use of props, LEDs, language choices, symbolism and metaphor in the lyrics, and so on. At other points, we might be testing out different “lenses” for interpreting these performances to see whether they help us. Those include various forms of Othering or differentiation (such as Orientalism, cosmopolitanism, novelty, essentializing), as well as ideas around representation. We can take these pieces in so many directions!

We’ve also been asked to draw a comparison between the performance and the national identity we discussed in our last blog post to see whether they’re aligned, misaligned, or utterly confounding.

And like last time, we’re referencing things in APA as best we can, so you can just happily skip them if all those parentheses get in the way of the flow.

As ever though, we’re wondering what are we missing? Do you have background info we can draw on for a revision (with a very short turnaround time)? Constructive feedback is always welcome. Revisions are due on 7 March, Seattle time, so any ideas before then would be super useful.

Here are the links to our blogs. (Some are running a little late, so will be linked once they’re ready.)

Albania 2023 Duje | Armenia 2022 Snap | Azerbaijan 2017 Skeletons | Cyprus 2018 Fuego | Czechia 2023 My sister’s crown | Estonia 2022 Hope | Finland 2016 Sing it away | Georgia 2023 Echo | Greece 2018 Oniro mou | Lithuania 2023 Stay | Malta 2021 Je me casse | Moldova 2010 Run away | Poland 2023 Solo | Romania 2009 The Balkan girls | Slovenia 2011 No one | Spain 2023 EAEA | Ukraine 2023 Heart of steel

National identity in Eurovisionland

In our first written blog posts, we're looking at what makes up the national identity of the Eurovision countries we’ve each chosen.

We've been asked to explain what "national identity" means, then use evidence from our research to identify key aspects of our country’s national identity.

Sometimes national identity is more about what a country is NOT, so we'll discuss whether Othering generates or maintains a national sense of self.

We've been asked to use in-text citations as well as references using the APA system. We suggest you skip over them while reading - unless you're excited to learn more!

What are we missing? What good sources can you recommend? Your feedback is appreciated, so please leave your constructive comments at the end of our posts. For this first written paper, we have the option of revising the text based on feedback (by February 15), so your thoughts are especially welcome!

Here are our blog sites (more links will show up once posts are published):

ALB Albania | ARM Armenia | AZE Azerbaijan | CYP Cyprus | CZE Czechia | EST Estonia | FIN Finland | GEO Georgia | GRC Greece | LTU Lithuania | MLT Malta | MDA Moldova | POL Poland | ROU Romania | SLV Slovenia | ESP Spain | UKR Ukraine

WINTER/HIVER 2024 – WELCOME TO/BIENVENUE À “THREE-MINUTE EUROPE”

Welcome to our Winter 2024 edition!

This year, another 19 valiant Seattle University students are investigating the Eurovision Song Contest in search of hidden treasures. Their degrees are from all over the university and most of them began their studies just four months ago.

The students are all taking this first-year humanities inquiry seminar as part of Seattle U’s Core Curriculum – a general education program in the Jesuit educational tradition that provides all undergraduates a taste of different fields of inquiry.

Each student is spending ten weeks examining a different country participating in the Eurovision Song Contest over the last ten or so years.

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

CZE Czechia | MDA Moldova | POL Poland | ROU Romania

NORTH

EST Estonia | FIN Finland | LVA Latvia | LTU Lithuania

SOUTH 

CYP Cyprus | GRC Greece | MLT Malta | ESP Spain

SOUTH-CENTRAL

ALB Albania | HRV Croatia | 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.