Broadening horizons and bringing Europe closer together: Organizing of the first EUTOPIA Summer School in Dresden

Violence is a multi-faceted phenomenon that appears in a wide variety of, what would seem at first glance, unrelated contexts. Whether it be at the state level in colonial practices and political discourse, or at the more personal level of drink-related violence, there is a conceptual thread that runs through each expression consistently, allowing researchers to work with violence as a broad theme across time and space.

With a thirst to explore this further, a summer school on the history of violence was held at TU Dresden between 2-8 July 2023 in cooperation with The University of Warwick and within the EUTOPIA initiative, in order to gain an interdisciplinary insight into the histories of violence while encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing across the partner institutions. The workshop was primarily targeted at senior undergraduate students, and with the enthusiastic attendance of 26 students from seven European universities the summer school demonstrated there is a considerable demand for such a platform of learning and exchange.

In the latest episode of the podcast On.Line.Dates by the Team of Digital Teaching of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at TU Dresden, Dr. Johannes Schütz and Wiebke Voigt speak about their experience of organizing and participating in the summer school. Reflecting on the benefit and need for such platforms, Dr. Johannes Schütz, himself research associate within the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History, makes the case that the summer school took on the character of being an alternative or supplement to the Erasmus program. Wiebke Voigt, research associate in the field of Early Modern History, agrees that, particularly for British students, who due to Britain’s withdrawal from the EU no longer have the possibility to take part in the Erasmus scheme, the summer school became an excellent supplement and also provided students the chance to get an up-close look at the actual ‘doing’ of academic work and research.

Given the fact that it was the EUTOPIA initiative’s first summer school in Dresden, the organizers had the freedom to be creative with the structure and direction of the program. This also meant though that there was the added responsibility of creating systems and logistics relating to the project’s management. The organizers therefore had to experiment with various systems and tools on a trial-and-error basis. This made the process very valuable in terms of creating a template and body of lessons learned for future EUTOPIA Summer schools to draw upon.

When reflecting on highlights and elements to be repeated in order to ensure the success of future EUTOPIA summer schools, both organizers emphasize the intensity of the format. The opportunity to delve in to a subject and discuss it intensively for a whole week with people from different walks of life and academic backgrounds, creates an environment for a richness of personal and professional experiences, seldom otherwise possible. Dr. Johannes Schütz summarizes the benefit of participating in the summer school with the following: “I think I could sum it up in one term and it covers everything. It’s a broadening of horizons”. Moreover, Wiebke Voigt places great value on the personal informal exchange and opportunity created to see other cities within Europe, which naturally occurs during the excursions and social evenings. Adding to this, Dr. Johannes Schütz argues that, indeed in the context of a yearly program in which each EUTOPIA-university rotates host status of the summer school, a certain European “atmosphere” is created and ties are formed bringing Europe closer, which is of course the idea at the core of the EUTOPIA initiative: a Europe-wide campus.

In the in-depth conversation with host Benjamin Lehmann, these representatives of a team of organizers tell us more about the various types of events of their summer school, reveal what they learned during the process and imagine what EUTOPIA could look like in ten years' time. Check out the full episode in German over at the On.Line.Dates podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts! Visit the podcast’s website to find the English transcript or get the PDF here.

Contact:

Dr. Johannes Schütz
Chair of Modern and Contemporary History
Email:
Tel.: +49 351 463 39716

Wiebke Voigt
Chair of Early Modern History
Email:
Tel.: +49 351 463-43847