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Study undergraduate online with Macquarie University through Open Universities Australia. Explore all degrees, subjects and short courses now.

The Bachelor of Arts (OUA) at Macquarie University is a distinctive course that equips its graduates with knowledge and skills that can be applied in any career or in further study. No other course offers as much flexibility and a wide range of study options as the Bachelor of Arts. You will be given the opportunity to turn your passion into a career while developing a strong set of core transferable skills valued by industry and the society. In consultation with industry, the Bachelor of Arts (OUA) places a strong emphasis on skills for success in the 21st century workplace. You will be taught by active researchers, leading academics and award winning teachers.

Make your degree unique and study what interests you. Analyse critically, think creatively and problem-solve at work or in everyday life. Complete foundational studies then tailor your degree with a major. Create a portfolio and build your connections.

Bachelor of Arts

Myth in the Ancient World

Latin A

Studying the Past: An Introduction to Ancient History in the 21st Century

History of Intelligence

The Archaeology of Egypt and Near East: Applying Lessons from the Past

Revolutions, Nationalism and Exploitation in the Modern World, 1789-2001

Ancient Greek A

Forging the West: A World History of Europe, 1215-1788

Women and Gender in the Ancient World

Every week students will be introduced to a number of myths from ancient Greece, Rome, the ancient Near East (including Egypt), and some myths from the Aboriginal traditions. You will study the earliest creation myths, explore the stories of gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters, in ancient literature and art. The myths, studied in translation, will be analysed in terms of their cultural context, the genre in which they belong, their typology and as the semester progresses through certain theoretical perspectives.

Reveal how the politics and cultural life of ancient civilisations are reflected in their mythology. Meet figures from Greek, Roman and Near-Eastern mythology. Study Egyptian and biblical texts. Look for examples of myths in literature and art.

Introduces students to foundational skills and concepts in the study of modern history from the late eighteenth century. Students will traverse the world from 1789 to 2001 looking closely at the role of revolution and the emergence of the nation-state, as well as the cost to humans and the natural world of economic growth and colonisation. Beginning with the French Revolution, the unit investigates conflict and change in the quest for equality and citizenship, telling the story of democratic aspirations in the modern world, including competing visions of modernity. It considers those excluded along with the new forms of solidarity and enmity created against the backdrop of rapid industrialisation, capitalism and environmental change. Students will build a foundational chronology of the modern world and develop skills such as critical and analytical thinking, effective communication and empathy.

Study modern history across the world. You’ll explore revolutions, colonisation, and modernity. Uncover the darker side of economic growth—slavery, trafficking, and environmental plunder. Work on your academic skills, including research and essay writing.

Recent surveys of popular historical awareness have demonstrated that most people find out about the past from film and television, yet visual histories are often criticised for the ways they present the past. This subject will consider the limitations and possibilities of history on screen. Do filmic histories represent a more &#39;authentic&#39; engagement with the past, or do they peddle false versions of history to a gullible public? How might we read historical films and television programs carefully and critically to understand diverse historical interpretations? This subject will develop student&#39;s understandings of the critical study of history on film, examining the ways that all historical texts (including films) make arguments about the past. The unit will examine cinematic and televisual representations of Australian, American and British histories.

Screening the Past: History on Film and Television

Historical fiction is one of the oldest genres of the literary novel, but the past is also used in many different ways in popular mass-market fiction such as romance and fantasy. This unit explores the use of history in narrative forms, including medieval literature, the rise of the novel in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the explosion of popular genre fiction in the twentieth century. It looks at how the genre became &quot;feminised&quot; and the role of the novelist Georgette Heyer in creating a new subgenre of historical romance. It explores how the past, from the ancient world to Australian history, has been fictionalised. Yet the twenty-first century historical novel is not merely entertaining; it can create debates and challenge public perceptions of the past in unsettling ways. Students will also consider how Australian authors have used historical fiction to retell or offer alternative narratives about the nation. By the end of this unit, students will understand how the past informs literary and popular fiction, and why historical fiction can sometimes be considered a form of historiographical interpretation, especially in novels relating to the Second World War and the Holocaust.

Historical Fiction and a Passion for the Past

More than seventy years after the end of the Second World War, fascism and Nazism continue to fascinate. In this course, we will explore Italian fascism and German Nazism as broadly understood in Europe and globally to better understand the appeal of their conservative, reactionary, and militaristic ideology. We will read the key literature on definitions of fascism in order to understand the concept as more than a pejorative. Through a close examination of the governments of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany we will investigate how fascist regimes controlled everyday life, mobilised political support, shaped men and women&#39;s bodies, built cults of personality around their leaders, silenced the press, defeated leftist student organisations and unions, and organised repressive systems of militaristic expansion. We will also concentrate on the way that people learned to resist, survive, and even thrive under fascism through the formation of armed bands, clandestine intellectual networks, and organisations for non-violent struggle.

Resisting the Nazis: Fascism and its Opponents

The &#39;medieval&#39; is everywhere in our &#39;modern&#39; age, both in culture and in our institutions. The University and the Parliament are medieval institutional inventions, for example. Our popular culture is imbued with myths bequeathed by the Middle Ages, from Robin Hood to Jedi Knights. And yet, the term &#39;medieval&#39; is hurled as an insult to anyone thought to be backwards or ignorant. Following Tarantino, brutal punishment can be defined as getting medieval. This unit will look at both the real Middle Ages, as a historical period, as well as its representations in our own culture. In particular, we will look at the political history of Latin Christendom, in order to understand the rise of kingdoms and the papacy during the Middle Ages. Simultaneously, students will encounter medievalism in our own time. We will match our discussion of the &#39;real&#39; Middle Ages with awareness of the &#39;fantasy&#39; Middle Ages in which our imaginations so often reside.

From Charlemagne to Game of Thrones: The Middle Ages Then and Now

This unit examines the origin and development of the &quot;state&quot; in Egypt and the ancient Near East through investigation of the archaeological, historical, textual, and artistic evidence. Particular attention is given to the processes involved in the formation of the first states in Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as secondary states elsewhere in the Near East, in particular Israel. Theoretical models for understanding what a state is and does will form the foundation upon which the actual ancient evidence is overlaid.

State Formation in the Ancient World

An advanced level study of some of the most common categories of material in the ancient world, including metals, stones, clay, animal and plant based fibers, timber and ivory, and various genres of materials production such as architecture, ceramics, sculpture, weaponry and equestrian equipment, with particular emphasis on technology, manufacture, function, style, iconography, chronology and spatial distribution. Material will normally be drawn from a diverse range of cultures, with specific physical examples from the collections of the Museum of Ancient Cultures, and may vary from year to year. Relying on this background, and in parallel, students will also be introduced to the history of museums and museum collections, the illicit trade of antiquities, the manufacture of forgeries, the participation of public museums and private collectors and related repercussions for the reconstruction of the historical record.

Explore how ancient cultures made things and how they’re displayed in museums today. From ceramics to weapons, you’ll reflect on various materials and technologies. Think ethically about exhibiting artefacts, considering forgeries and illicit trade.

Material Culture and Museum Studies

The unit examines socio-cultural diversity, complexity and transformation of the Ancient Egyptian material world drawing on case studies from the Predynastic to Late Antique periods (ca. 5000 B.C.E to 1000 C.E). The unit aims to contextualise the conditions within which disciplinary, historical and/or archaeological knowledge about ancient Egypt has been constructed and draws on Indigenous modes of learning and pedagogical principles to develop historical and cultural empathy.Informed by theory and research paradigms developed in the social and cultural sciences, students in the unit will develop skills in critical and reflexive thinking through the examination of primary sources from diverse contexts and historiographical critique of secondary literature. The unit will pay special attention to the role played by imperialism, colonialism, orientalism and modern identity politics in the emergence and trajectory of the fields of Egyptology, archaeology and papyrology, as well as to new methods and approaches to understand Egypt&#39;s past.

Ancient Egypt: Culture and Society

This unit explores the era of the palace-based states in the Aegean during the Bronze Age (c.3000 BC – c.1100 BC). These are the dramatic years of Greek prehistory which the poet Hesiod famously described as the ‘Age of Heroes’, whose legends were recounted in Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey. This unit critically examines the rich archaeological evidence, beginning with the emergence of complex societies in the Cyclades and Crete and the creation of the Minoan palace civilization with its most prestigious site of Knossos. Then follows a critical study of the rise of competing states on the Greek mainland including Mycenae, Tiryns, and Pylos. The Linear B script will also be explored for the information it provides concerning the Late Bronze Age Mycenaean society.

Minos and Mycenae: The Aegean Bronze Age

Macquarie University Undergraduate History Subjects | Open Universities Australia

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