Visiting Fellows 2007-08

Prof Marju Lauristin and Prof Peeter Vihalemm

Visiting Fellows October 2007

Prof Lauristin and Prof Vihalemm from the University of Tartu Visiting Fellows in October 2007. During their stay they offered a short, intensive course in 'Estonian Post Communist Transformation: society, politics and media' for CEES  undergraduate and postgraduate students. Their stay was jointly funded by Erasmus/Estonian Ministry of Education and Research/CEES.

Marju Lauristin is Professor of Social Communication at the Department of Journalism and Communication at University of Tartu. Professor Lauristin has produced more than 70 academic publications, over a third of which have a wide international distribution. Two books published in Estonia have received accolades on an international scale: Towards a Civil Society (1993) and Return to the Western World (1997). Her most recent publications include The Challenge of the Russian Minority: Emerging Multicultural Democracy in Estonia (2002).

Professor Lauristin is a member of numerous professional associations including:

  • the Estonian Sociological Association,
  • the Baltic Association for Media Research (BAMR),
  • the Estonian Media Educators' Association,
  • the Estonian Public Relations Association,
  • the European Institute for Social Security (EISS),
  • the International Sociological Association (ISA),
  • the European Sociological Association (ESA),
  • the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), and
  • the Association for the Studies of Nationalities (ASN).

She also serves as a board member and committee member of several organisations. She is the corresponding editor of the European Journal of Communication. She serves as a member of the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention of Minority Rights at the Council of Europe. Professor Lauristin is also a member of the Council of the the United Nations University and a member of the board of the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki.

Peeter Vihalemm is Professor of Media and Communication at the department of Journalism and Communication at the University of Tartu. He is also Chairman of the Baltic Association for Media Research (BAMR).

Professor Vihalemm is a member of several organisations:

  • the Estonian Sociological Association (founding member since 1990),
  • the Baltic Association for Media Research (BAMR) (founding member since 1993),
  • the International Sociological Association (ISA, member since 1994), and
  • the European Sociological Association (ESA, since 1994).

His main research focus is in the field of media as a system and media use (Baltic Media in Transition (2002) and on changing international space of Estonia.

Together with Professor Lauristin, he has published numerous articles about Estonian post-communist transformation and was co-editor and co-author of the above mentioned books Towards a Civil Society (1993) and Return to the Western World (1997).

 

Dr Nina Ivashinenko

Visiting Fellow, 10 October-10 December 2007

Dr Ivashinenko is Head of the Department of Economic Sociology in the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Nizhny Novgorod (Russia) and Deputy Director and Senior Researcher at the Research Centre ESS (Economic. Society. Science).

Her main fields of research are:

  1. economic and social transformation, focusing on the development of market economies;
  2. social protection of the population;
  3. corporate social responsibility.

During the period of the fellowship Dr. Ivashinenko will give a paper "Poverty reduction: the socio-economic mechanism" at a work in progress seminar organized by CEES. In addition she will organize a seminar and a masters teaching class on "Socio-economic factors of poverty: poverty scale evaluation" within CEES, where she will present a review of the database of the results of sociological research in Russia.

 

Dr Olaf Mertelsmann

Visiting Fellow 14 January-2 February 2008

Dr Mertelsmann is Associate Professor in Contemporary History and Head of the Centre for the Study of Soviet History at the University of Tartu, Estonia. His main fields of research are social and economic history of the USSR and the Baltic States, especially in the period of Late Stalinism. During his stay, Dr Mertelsmann plans to present research seminar(s) on the following topics: "Sovietisation of the Western Borderlands: The Case of Estonia" as part of the West Coast Seminar Series on 23 January; "Living on a Stalinist Kolkhoz: an oral history" as an Adam Smith Research Foundation lecture on  Thursday, 31 January 2008, 12.30-2.00pm and conduct a research methodology postgraduate masterclass on "Explorations in the Strange World of Soviet Statistics" 30 January.