Application deadline December 15th: 3-day graduate school "Animals in transdisciplinary environmental history"

Animals in transdisciplinary environmental history

Graduate School in Environmental History

Läänemaa, Estonia, May 13-15, 2015

KAJAK, the Estonian Centre for Environmental History at Tallinn University Institute of History, in cooperation with the University of Tartu and Rachel Carson Center for Environment & Society (LMU Munich) and with the support of European Society for Environmental History are pleased to announce a three-day graduate seminar in environmental history hosted in the Estonian countryside.

The seminar will explore animals as historical agents and as a lens through which to understand past environmental transformations. A workshop on popular science writing will also take place and the summer school will end with an open roundtable on animals assisting humans. The graduate seminar aims to gather 15 graduate (and post-doctoral) students together with junior and senior scholars.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 15 December 2014.

Detailed information on the program and how to apply may be found in the full call for applications.

Academic travels - June, July

Yesterday I arranged tickets and accommodation in relation to two academic travels this summer - to Imatra, Finland, June 8-13, where I will take part in the International Semiotics institute's Summer School (which includes the 25th year anniversary symposium of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies), and to Utrecht, the Netherlands, July 3-7th, where I will take part in the second Minding Animals Conference. The only thing that remains to arrange is my trip back home from Utrecht.

In between these two academic trips I will be on holyday with my wife and child-to-be in Brazil.

University of Tartu: Semiotics podcast; university ranking

In October the newsletter of the university of Tartu linked to a semiotic podcast. Semiotics - lingering or thriving?, posted in September, documents a panel discussion from the 5-day Tartu summer school in semiotics, which was launched this year.

The same newsletter could report that Times Higher Education (THE) now ranks the University of Tartu among the 350-400 top universities globally. This is the highest the university has been ranked, and places it among the top 3 % of universities internationally. University of Tartu is the highest ranked university of Estonia.