Local Big Histories
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Introduction
How does your corner of the world fit into a global picture? What makes its people and its culture unique, and what does it have in common with other places in the world? In this grant-winning course you will be able to find out. You will do so by connecting your local history to big history, which is a type of history that deals with the world as a whole, including all the geological, biological and cultural processes that have shaped it. And you will do so by collaborating with students from Danish, Italian and Spanish universities. This will allow you to see how different regions of the world, their peoples and their cultures have all been shaped in their own special ways by global processes. This, in turn, will allow you to reflect on the relationship between local and global identities and on what it means to be a global citizen who also needs to be able to relate to what is important on the local level. In order to do all of this, you will first take a crash course in big history, based on videos that have been designed and recorded especially for this course, reading, and online seminars during which you will discuss the video and literature content. You will also create a short video that describes your local history. Next, in groups composed of students from different universities, you will work on connecting big history and your local history, also by interviewing experts from the involved universities. This will result in a final local big history video that will be published on a layered map that will connect all the different local big histories that will be produced during this course. |
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