Working out the curriculum of a joint MA programme ’Microhistory’
(2014-2016)
Financed by the Tempus Public Foundation (EGT/156/M4-0003)
Project summary
The project unites colleagues from Hungary, Norway and Iceland to work together towards the elaboration of a joint international History MA programme called ’Microhistory’. Based on the experiences of a former cooperation in the field, participants will elaborate relevant educational material and also teach such experimental courses. The novelty of the project can be proved by the fact that microhistory is not yet present in the university curricula but on the level of the courses. The project partners aim to make the decisive step towards the teaching of the approach and the methods of microhistory in the organised form of independent History MA programmes. On the long term, this fosters a better understanding among different peoples, since microhistory does not poise different nations against each other, but rather stresses the common experience of ordinary folk in times past. The project envisages a preliminary phase of gathering data, followed by one workshop, then an academic year in which experimentary courses are held in the partner institutions, followed by two more workshops. As a result full documentation of an MA programme ’Microhistory’ will be offered to universities all over the world, so that they can introduce this into their History curriculum. Every partner has a serious experience in the field. Among the donor partners, Reykjavík Academy is affiliated with the very first institution in the world that specializes in the study of microhistory (Center for Microhistorical Research, see its webpage microhistory.org); University of Iceland is innovative in the field of humanities, open to the most up-to-date currents of thought in social sciences. At Volda University College, important researches are done on local history understood as microhistory. As for the project promoter Hungarian partner, Microhistory has been present on the curriculum of Eötvös University since 1995, and also courses on microhistory in English have been offered.

 

Partners
Eötvös University (Budapest)
University of Iceland (Reykjavík)
Volda Unversity College (Norway)
Reykjavík Academy (Iceland)

 

Workgroup MICRO

Participants of the first event of the project Working out the curriculum of a joint MA programme ’Microhistory’, financed by Tempus Public Foundation (partners: Eötvös University, Budapest, the University of Iceland (Reykajvík), Volda Unversity College (Norway) and the Reykjavík Academy (Iceland)), the workshop that took place in Budapest between 25 and 27 September 2015, suggested the establishment of a network that can serve as a basis for a future cooperation aimed at establising an MA programme ’Microhistory’. We shall call this workgroup MICRO and other members of the Microhistory Network are also cordially invited to join in this work. Members. — September 2017: As the University of Iceland, that had been in the centre of the efforts to establish and accredit an English-language MA in Microhistory, decided recently that these attempts are not realistic, the activities of the Workgroup MICRO are suspended – in the hope that someone will soon raise this banner again.

Suggestions for an English-language MA in Microhistory
Sigurdur Gylfi Magnússon’s suggestion (29 September 2015)
István Szijártó’s suggestion (24 October 2015)
Tom Cohen’s comments
Dagmar Freist’s comments
A statement on Andrey Isérov on behalf of NRU-HSU (Moscow)
Final suggestion made by the participants of the Volda workshop, April 2016

Pilot courses
Microhistory – Agency and Cultural Techniques in the 19th-Century Hungarian Literature. MA course in Eötvös University, Budapest in the spring semester of the academic year 2015-2016 (taught by Gábor Vaderna)
Local-, family- and micro history (Arnfinn Kjelland)
Microhistory (István Szijártó)
Microhistory of Italy from the Renaissance to the 18th century (István Szijártó)
Medieval and early modern deviance: macro and micro approaches (Veronika Novák)
Of Unpublished Books: Post-medieval manuscript culture and its role in literary history (David Ólafsson)
Business history and microhistory (Károly Halmos)
The Lost Children of Paris and Other Tales from European History (Mónika Mátay)

Archive of older but relevant course curricula
An Individual Life – Rumors, Scandals, Trials and Memory – A Microhistorical Approach (Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon)
2013/14. Microhistory (István Szijártó)
2009/10. Microhistory (Mónika Mátay – István Szijártó)

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