The Course.

It started as a club in 2017 and has now become a high-school elective, the only one of its kind in the world. To my knowledge, in no other high school anywhere on the planet, and certainly not in the USA, is there a taught course on the Eurovision Song Contest. (This assertion is based on a quick Google search, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

My goal for the course is twofold: to introduce students to the history and culture of Europe through the lens of Eurovision, and to have them decide whether Eurovision is actually worthy of academic study, or whether it’s just a cornucopia of camp, kitsch and key-changes.

Topics covered include Brexit, soft-power, the ongoing tensions between Ukraine and Russia, the siege of Sarajevo, separatist movements, and LGBTQ+ representation on the Eurovision stage. The course was written by me, from scratch, with help from the following sources:

• Tibballs, G. (2016). The Good, The Bad and the Wurst. London, Robinson.

• Vuletic, D. (2018). Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest. London: Bloomsbury.

• West, C. (2017). Eurovision! A History of Europe Through the World’s Greatest Song Contest. London: Melville House.

• numerous journal articles

• and the fantastic Europhoria podcast, by Roland Bodenham and Isobel Chillman