Theoretical aspects of international relations and how they apply to the ‘real world’ of world politics involves understanding of key actors in world politics, from states to international organisations and institutions, to non-state actors, how the international system that regulates international order operates today (and how that system has evolved over recent centuries), and they can produce order and disorder.

This unit is primarily aimed at acquainting undergraduate students with the academic theory and debates surrounding China's business etiquette and its globalizing economy. Drawing on a wide range of English-language studies, unit lectures will cover in broad strokes the historic background of the economic reforms carried out in China over the last three decades, as well as their societal implications. They will discuss, for example, the evolution of corporate law and property rights in the PRC since 1949, and the underlying differences and interdependence between the Chinese and Australian economies.

This unit looks at the role of south Asia in global processes from historical, cultural and economic perspectives. It traces three broad themes: the significance of early south Asian contacts with other cultures; the impact of colonial interactions with Europeans; and the development of postcolonial identities in the Indian diaspora. In particular, we consider how new hybrid formations emerged as products of cross-cultural exchange. The unit contrasts India’s role as an agent of cultural globalisation from the past with its place as a recipient of economic globalisation in the present. We also look at the ways in which issues of caste, religion, social class, gender and unequal access to resources have remained significant factors in thinking through the experience of India’s relationship with the wider world.

This unit investigates social and political discourses of a selection of literary (the novel, poetry, memoir) and cultural texts that highlight aspiration, ideals and tragedies of national and global significance. It will explore concepts and manifestations of self, nation, community, empire, culture and art through a study of textual constructions of the individual's negotiation of interacting and often competing ideologies. A range of written and visual texts will be use.

Since the terrorist attacks of 11 September, 2001, threats of terrorism have been entrenched in both headlines and the collective psyche. Across the globe, terrorism, anti-terrorism and the politics of fear are influential factors in the formulation of domestic and foreign policies. The current wave of terror and counter-terror raises important questions. What do we mean by terror? Is the war on terror really a war like no other? Is the current terrorist threat unprecedented? This unit will examine historical precedents and theories of terrorism.

This unit gives students knowledge of research methods relevant to humanities disciplines. Modules provide advanced instruction in developing a research topic, evidence-based research and Human Research Ethics processes and policy.

Human communication takes many forms, and has many corresponding capacities: to bond, to represent, to express, to reveal, to record, to encode, to network - and more. Through communicative connections and associated actions human societies aim to accomplish ethical, political and personal tasks. This unit aims to examine communications as actions and forces as much as making meanings: verbal confession reveals personal truths and cultural belief; the printed word enables dissemination of new ideas about society and its structures; electronic messages connect in novel ways. Through looking at crucial forms and evolving communication techniques, this unit examines the powers of communication.

This unit introduces climate change as a complex social, cultural and political phenomenon, one that is re-shaping the way we live in the world and future lifestyles. Because climate change is highly contested, the course critically examines the issue from different theoretical, disciplinary, social and cultural perspectives. Topics range from cultural theory and forms of social action to the history and construction of climate change as concepts and debates around nature, culture, science, economics and consumption; to social justice, Indigenous knowledge systems, popular culture, the media and Australian politics, global governance, cities and urban planning.

Consumption and consumerism are words that frequently have negative connotations in popular usage. The consumer society has been widely criticised, from a diverse range of political perspectives. This unit introduces students to some of these critiques, including those relating to issues of gender. It also aims to introduce students to other ways of thinking about commodities and consumption - ways that focus on the active processes involved in making meaning out of commodities and on the popular pleasures involved in such processes. This unit focuses on the rise of consumer society and of the cultural paradigm of consumerism. Students analyse a range of cultural products and practices, such as shopping, as well as considering the role of commodities in meaning making and identity formation.

The unit introduces students to both the broad and specific concepts of globalisation. It covers such topic areas as the expansion and development of global capital and the ascendancy of the transnational over national forms of economy, society, communication, politics and culture. It also covers the contrasting increasing interest in and development of national and/or local forms of economy, society, politics and culture as they accommodate and reshape the global.

Are you what you eat? This unit explores the relationship between food, globalisation and human experience in an historical and cross-cultural context. Food is central to the formation of cultural identity, the emergence of social taboo and the expression of religious belief. While food has become associated with national identity, foodstuffs have also become symbols of cross-cultural interaction through the imperial experience or the effect of migration. The relationship between food, culture and identity is an important one, but the current world food price crises; the persistence of famine in the developing world; and the emergence of ‘fast food’ as a marker of globalisation remind us of the critical relationship between nutrition and political economies.

The experiences of globalization are explored from a variety of levels across time and space, from the individual to the local, the national to the international. The focus in this course will be on issues of politics, both domestic and international, but we will keep in mind that globalization is a phenomenon that is explored and assessed by a wide range of disciplines, including history, sociology, politics, law, economics, anthropology, gender studies, human geography, economics, regional and area studies, science and technology, health and epidemiology.

Global governance is an increasingly important regulatory tool in an age of hyper-globalisation. Issues for study include: the roles of non-state actors and influences in global politics, from the United Nations to the broader global economy, from NGOs to terrorist regimes. Globalization implies a loss of control, particularly state control, or loss of sovereignty over issues such as security, environment, migration, finance/money/ investment, intellectual property, trade, manufactures, health, and infectious disease control. As such, it reveals new spheres of common interests that transcend states’ interests. This development opens the way for a more prominent role in the system for international law, formal regimes, and multilateral intergovernmental organisations. This system of formal and informal institutions and rules has come to be known as a system of global governance.

This unit aims to provide third year humanities students with first-hand knowledge of workplaces or research processes related to their chosen field of study (major), such as art galleries, museums, libraries, local and state government, tourism and administration or in academic contexts. The unit will introduce students to various fields in which the skills developed over two years of study in humanities can be applied. It will augment their study and provide much needed work experience. The internship placement and/or project will be chosen by the student in consultation with the staff member responsible for the major area and the placement will be overseen and the academic work assessed by the member of staff responsible for the major area of study relevant to the internship.

This is an optional level 3 core unit for the major in Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, and Italian, within the BA Languages Key Program. It also constitutes part of the linguistics major and sub-major. It can also be taken as an elective. This is a language-specific unit intended to develop the students’ awareness of language usage issues which may have an impact on intercultural communication and, therefore, on cultural stereotyping as well as other real life interests, such as business relationships and professional performance. It covers issues such as the relationship between culture and language use, ingroup-outgroup relationships, speech acts across cultures, politeness in text and discourse, miscommunication and stereotyping.

Provides students with an understanding of global, regional and local news media production and representations of Islam and Muslim societies. It discusses new, emerging and alternative forms of media discourses of conflict in the Muslim world, and analyses selected news reports as forms of case studies. Taking the notion of ‘Orientalism’ as its starting point, the subject/unit critically examines the extent to which the mediatisation of conflict impacts relations between Islam and the West vis-a-vis debates on Orientalism, 'Asian values' and Islamic world views.

Popular representations of world politics shape our collective understanding of political history and international relations. This unit examines the ways in which film can communicate political messages to its audience, as well as the far more difficult issue of the effects that those messages might have on viewers. Although the discipline of International Relations (IR) has overwhelmingly ignored popular culture, it is the argument of this unit that popular culture actually provides us with a wealth of significant representations of world politics.

This unit examines critiques of power in relation to everyday media cultures and the uneven development of modernity. The history of concepts of power is considered in terms of the relationship between socio-cultural, technical, political, and economic conditions shaping media cultures in the context of the everyday. Working with the concept of 'uneven modernities', this unit provides students with an understanding of the shift from industrial production to flexible accumulation and the impacts of this on media cultures globally.

This unit looks at the emergence of ‘hybridity’ as a category of cultural and social thought by tracing its historical and philosophical genealogies in a wider global context. It looks at the contested ways in which racial mixing or métissage have been articulated in the Western imagination, from ‘contamination’ to ‘cosmopolitanism’. Through charting the changing meanings of ‘miscegenation’ over time, and in imperial contexts, new insights are offered on the ways in which we might situate current debates on cultural and social identity.

A multidisciplinary approach to Italian Renaissance visual culture. Topics to be studied include Italian Renaissance art, architecture, as well as their transmission across cultures and nations through travel, heritage, tourism, religion, food and fashion.

This unit discusses theories of migration, transnationalism, globalisation, diaspora and identity. We examine the experience of migration and settlement, and the transnational cultural forms that emerge in this process. We investigate the role of new means of communication such as the internet in connecting migrants and the homeland. We also analyse how religion supports migrants in the process of homebuilding. Finally, this unit also discusses the descendants of migrant who have 'returned' to the homeland after living abroad for generations. Do they become minorities in their ancestral homeland despite their presumed ethnic similarities with the host population?

The impact of the industrial revolution was felt earliest and most profoundly in many parts of the world through changes in transport and communications. During the mid 19th century the telegraph, postal services, the steamship and the railway diminished distance in ways no innovations ever had before. This unit will examine their social, economic and political impact as well as later innovations such as civil aviation and road motor transport.

This unit surveys contemporary world cinema in a range of languages in order to address a range of linguistic and cultural issues, including the role of subtitling and dubbing in cross-cultural communication. The unit allows students majoring in a Language other than English to enrol in a language specific tutorial (Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Japanese or Spanish) and other students to enrol in a tutorial conducted in English.

This unit examines representative works of world literature written in languages other than English in order to address a range of literary and cultural issues, including the role of translation in cross-cultural communication. The unit allows students majoring in Italian or Japanese to enrol in a language specific tutorial, and other students to enrol in a tutorial conducted in English.

This unit provides inquiry into the origins, course, and aftermath of WWII in Asia and the Pacific. You will ask why Japan and China went to war with each other in the 1930s; you will also seek understanding of why and how that war came to include the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and practically all of Asia. You will examine the atomic attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Was the bomb a necessary evil? Or could/should the US have avoided using the bomb? You will also look intensively at post-WWII Asia. How did two wartime allies – the US and the Soviet Union – become bitter enemies within months of the war’s end? Why did China descend into civil war? What was the war in Korea all about? Were wars of independence throughout SE Asia unavoidable? How was it that Japan escaped much of this postwar misery?