For modern history students it's a small world after all
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Dr Marnie Hughes-Warrington |
Thanks to a new international online partnership, and the opportunity to secure one of two overseas scholarships, the world is becoming much smaller for Macquarie University world history students.
World history at Macquarie is an emerging subject for postgraduate study, with three PhD students and 45 people enrolled in the Masters program.
What is world history?
One of the most common misconceptions is that world historians do everything, and that those doing postgraduate study in the area have to write about everything.
"The good news is that it's never everything," explains world history lecturer, Dr Marnie Hughes-Warrington. "Every world that a world historian creates is a selective world."
For example, one world history student is studying El Nino and how world historians have talked about, and understood it. She is then seeing whether farmers in New South Wales can bring something new to the world experience of weather.
Erasmus Mundus Program
2006 Masters students will have the opportunity for international dialogue thanks to an online forum run in conjunction with Leipzig University. Macquarie has linked with four universities through an Erasmus Mundus Partnership. Leipzig University, Vienna University, Wroclaw University in Poland, the London School of Economics and Macquarie make up this group. The Erasmus Mundus program aims at improving the quality of higher education in Europe, as well as promoting intercultural understanding with other countries.
The online forum is part of Hughes-Warrington's world history subject. Run via Macquarie's website, the forum proved very popular in 2005 with 300-level students, some of whom were online every night.
"It is an asynchronous discussion forum," says Hughes-Warrington. "The good thing about this international forum is that it's not just learning about people in the past who travelled and misunderstood one another, but you yourself are engaged in that same act and crossing national boundaries and discovering."
Scholarship opportunities
Thanks to an Erasmus Mundus scholarship, two Macquarie University students have the opportunity to go to Europe each year. This scholarship is available for Masters or Honours students in 2006, 2007 and 2008 with a distinct likelihood that it will be extended beyond then.
"It is a two-year scholarship and covers travel, fees and living expenses in three of the four universities," says Hughes-Warrington. "It is a very generous scholarship and students come out with a double MA, after doing one year at Leipzig and the other at Vienna for example. Then they can come back here and do their PhD."
In reverse, Macquarie will host a group of three or four EU students doing their MA. "Our teaching is trying to align with our content which is international," says Hughes-Warrington. "It is of great benefit for us with these strong international links."
For further information on world history, the Erasmus Mundus program and Scholarship contact Dr Marnie Hughes-Warrington at marnie.hughes-warrington@mq.edu.au For more information on postgraduate courses in modern history at Macquarie University, visit www.modhist.mq.edu.au/postgrad01.htm