Handbook

How and why did people start to compose histories? Students in this subject explore how some influential stories about pasts relate to actual events in history, the long-lasting stories about war and heroism in ancient Greece and Rome, and about Arthur and the knights of the Round Table in Medieval England. We consider the evidence for the origins of these stories about the past in oral and written texts, in objects, and in art. We trace the endurance of these stories into the modern world. We examine how composing stories about or from the past sometimes became the writing of history. This subject addresses La Trobe's Essential on Sustainability Thinking by reflecting on how age-old stories have altered and reflected conceptions of power and human well-being: theirs and ours. Myth, Legend and History helped shape cultural systems of human purpose and meaning that endure because they are forever re-invented. The subject discloses how histories are never just received, but are composed for a reason by someone, somehow, somewhere.