Recommended Study Sequence

This unit introduces students to key themes and issues in the study of everyday life. It draws on different disciplinary areas - especially anthropology, sociology and cultural studies - and different theoretical and methodological perspectives to examine the ways cultural practices and meanings are used to shape human identities and societies in everyday life. It will focus on rituals and routines in the different spaces of everyday life, and the ways these contribute to the production of local worlds and the key cultural categories that give meaning to these worlds. It will include a focus on how we research everyday life.

Representations of Indigenous Australians are to be found within a broad range of texts produced by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. The texts give us access to the shifting conceptualisations about both the nature of Aboriginality, and the relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Examination and comparison of dominant as well as self-representations of Indigenous Australians in a variety of texts and films will enable students to deconstruct the cultural processes through which their own identities are produced. Texts and their readings; textual deconstruction; Saussure's basic semiotic analysis; signification and the production of cultural meaning; Barthes' myth and second level significations; function of the metaphor; genre and intertextuality; narrative form the 'realism' effect; grand narratives and ideology; narrator function and audience positioning.

This unit looks at popular culture in contemporary society and the ways it functions to give shape and meaning to social life. It considers issues around the politics of popular culture, questions of value, taste, subjectivity, resistance and pleasure. It invites students to reflect upon their own experiences of and relations to popular culture as well as those of others to develop skills of analysis and interpretation. It covers topics as diverse as shopping, TV Talk Shows, tattooing, celebrity and fandom.

This unit provides an introduction to the work of Sigmund Freud by examining central concept and methodologies within Freudian theory. The unit is intended to provide a broad overview of psychoanalysis. In this unit particular attention is paid to key terms such as the unconscious and repression, as well as to the early case histories and Freud's later 'structural' models of the mind. Attention is paid also to critical assessments of psychoanalysis and to its status as a science.

The notion of 'New Ethnicities', introduced first by Stuart Hall in the 1980s in the context of the ascendancy of the New Right in Britain stressed, among other things, the importance of social and cultural identities, including ethic and racial identities, generated by the process of globalisation, and the convergence of trans-national and trans-racial loyalties. Based on this notion, this unit critically examines the essentialist definitions of 'ethnicity', 'race' and 'nation', across many areas of cultural policy and practice. It draws theoretical perspectives from many schools of social thought including modernism, Marxism and postmodernism. Empirical examples are drawn from both the western and non-western world.

This unit offers an introduction to the contemporary analysis of sex, gender and relations of power. Sex and gender are not studied in isolation but in connection with other significant aspects of identity and difference - ethnicity, class and sexuality for example. Particular attention is paid to contemporary Australian issues and debates. Key concepts that are studied include 'sex', 'gender', 'sexuality', 'power', 'resistance', 'identity', 'difference', 'subjectivity', and 'inter-subjectivity'.

This unit examines cultural forms and practices as they relate to sex and sexual activity. Its primary focus is sociological and ethnographic. The unit introduces students to methods and approaches in the researching of sex's role in cultural formation. We look at the way in which sex, sexual practice and sexual identity are experienced as social and cultural practices. The unit looks closely at particular sexual cultures, and moves from research regarding these sexual cultures to understandings of sex as culture. Each topic takes a trajectory from empirical, qualitative or other sociological studies of sites and practices, drawing on a range of theoretical approaches to develop understandings of sex as culture.

Social Inequality arising from the operations of power creates patterns of unequal access of people to economic, social and political resources in different ways in different societies and cultures. These processes raise fundamental theoretical issues, as well as matters of serious practical concern. This unit, at the theoretical level, will critically examine the classical theories of Marx and Weber, and also many contemporary, post-structuralist theorists of power such as Foucault and Giddens and inequalities in a variety of forms such as class and caste, gender and ethnicity. At the empirical level, the Unit draws on case studies of not only Western but also non-Western societies and cultures.

This is a “shell” unit, in which new unit content and critical approaches in Cultural and Social Analysis can be trialled. Content will depend on student requirements in conjunction with staff research and teaching expertise. The unit may also be used to provide students with the opportunity to undertake primary research or a project in the area of Cultural and Social Analysis.

This unit examines the social contexts and cultural meanings of technology and science in contemporary society, particularly in relation to questions of power. It begins with an overview of key analytical issues - does technology shape society or does society shape technology? What is the nature of the human-technology relation? How objective is science? It considers current debates around information technologies and the idea of the information society, and the representations of science and technology in popular culture, debates around biotechnology, etc. It develops a critical awareness of the relations between the state, the military, the market and social life in relation to issues around surveillance, work, and military technology.

Big cities can be frantic, difficult, polluted and often dangerous places in which to live. Yet cities also contain possibilities for social and cultural stimulation not available elsewhere. This unit traces the origins and development of modern cities in all of their complexity. It looks at how industrial cities emerged in Europe and Australia, and at the threat that uncontrolled urban growth posed to social order. We examine the conditions of urban life that promote alienation and anonymity, and how people overcome social fragmentation. There is discussion of modern cities - from those that sprawl, like Sydney, to the relatively compact and dense centres of Europe, the north-eastern United States and Asia. We look at the gendered nature of public space, and how class and ethnic tensions are played out in cities. Students read a range of texts on urban culture and society. These include classic works by writers like Freidrich Engels, George Simmel and Walter Benjamin, to the contemporary work of David Harvey, Richard Sennet and Mike Davis.

Young people have long been the focus of fears of 'respectable' people. Public figures regularly express concern about the social disorder created by unruly youths. This was the case in late nineteenth-century Sydney when those designated larrikins incurred the public wrath, and is still the case today when those seen as comprising 'youth gangs' are demonised in the media. This unit will show how young people become defined as a problem, how politicians, police and the media are involved in that definition, and how the resultant moral panic often leads to more repressive policing. Students will examine a range of case studies from Britain and Australia.

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.

This unit explores the concept of children’s culture and the diversity of cultures to which children belong. The unit focuses on current debates about childhood and children’s culture, including the rise of children’s consumer culture. Students will gain insights into children’s lives and culture by critically engaging with a variety of objects and institutions that are part of children’s lives, for example, toys, videogames, children’s television programs, films and books. The unit will also examine the role of adults in children’s culture, including in marketing and advertising to children.

This unit will examine the role of cinema in forming images of national and cultural identity. The unit will study approaches in film theory to national cinemas, and will explore the development of indigenous and postcolonial cinemas. The unit will discuss political debates and issues in national cinemas, and will raise questions about the nature of memory as it is mediated by cinematic experience, the representation of history, and the history of representation of indigenous cultures and peoples. The unit will introduce these questions and examine them within the framework of a case study of one national or postcolonial cinema.

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.

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.

This unit is a critical introduction to the social practices surrounding death in modernity. Although primarily addressing social arrangements in the West, the unit examines the bio-politics of death in a wider cultural framework, with attention to geographies of power and economic influence in excess of East/West or North/South polarities. The unit traces the historical development of concepts of the individual; the impact on Western ideas around death of genocide and modern warfare; and assesses contemporary ethical and medical controversies as well as critical theories of risk. The unit attempts to demonstrate the relationship of death to: the construction of social institutions; ideas of community and the exercise of power.

This unit examines forms of cultural expression and collective self-understanding articulated as emotional identifications. Topics covered may include shame, pride, responsibility, forgiveness, resentment, hope, remembrance, generosity, happiness, hate and love. The unit explores how these have been taken up in contemporary cultural analysis as a focus for understanding affinities and conflicts between individuals and communities and for how Australians imagine their historical interconnectedness. It introduces some key theoretical perspectives that have been, and might be, applied to the study of emotions, culture and community.

Evolutionary thinking has been one of the strongest and most pervasive influences on human thinking and behaviour in the modern era, leading in its most dangerous forms to eugenics, social engineering and theories of racial hierarchy. This unit examines various evolutionary modes of thought - focusing especially on Darwins The Origin of Species (1859) - their social and cultural impact, and challenges to their legitimacy.

This unit takes as its starting point the idea that disease has social and cultural as well as biological origins. What people define as good health and illness, and how they treat the latter are profoundly shaped by cultural frameworks. Healing practices, including biomedicine, are underpinned by cultural understandings and larger configurations of power. We will examine notions of disease causality across cultures and explore the argument that good and ill health are about more than just the body. Popular understandings of illness and its origins, and techniques for responding to and seeking to remedy illness can be a reflection of how different societies imagine their place in the world.

This unit aims to provide third year humanities students with first-hand knowledge of workplaces or research processes related to their chosen filed of study (major), such as art galleries, museums, libraries, local and state government, tourism and administration or in academic contexts. The units 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.

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.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, multiculturalism remains an important topic of debate both in Australia and the world at large. This unit explores the concept of multiculturalism in a historical perspective and across a variety of sites. While concentrating upon Australian multiculturalism, the syllabus also encompasses the study of multiculturalism in a variety of international contexts. Particular attention is paid to the relations between multiculturalism and nationalism, the role of religion, the relation of multiculturalism to Indigenous politics, and to the increased pressures placed upon cultural difference and diversity by globalisation.

Psychoanalytic criticism introduces students to key developments in psychoanalytic theory after Freud including the work of Lacan, Kristeva, Klein, Benjamin, Mitchell and Zizek. The unit applies these theories to the analysis and critique of cultural formations (institutions etc), the media (film and television) and everyday practices (such as shopping, sport etc).

Throughout history various forms of material culture (such as art, architecture, sculpture, objects and photographs) have been used to memorialize individuals as well as to commemorate events, both personal and national. As such, an examination of commemorative works offer valuable insights into the production of public memory and history. This unit explores the particular contexts of such memorials; their meaning, design and, politics. The diverse expressions of commemoration in Australia and the consequent production of public memory provides the arena for such considerations.

This unit focuses on the relationship between religion and culture and considers the role of religion as elemental to forces of cultural change. Various religions are studied with a view to investigating how culture shapes religion and in turn how religion shapes and moulds culture. Topics include the rise of fundamentalism, the relationship between gender and religion, religion and violence, religion and ethics, the relationship between science and religion, the rise of new forms of spirituality including New Age, and the role of religion in popular culture.

This unit deals with the evolution of the figure of the detective and of the criminal; the development of an aesthetics of crime from the later 18th Century; the dynamic nature of fiction, film and television genres of detection. Literatures of sensation, detective fictions, true crime writing and the non-fiction novel will all be examined to allow an in-depth analysis of the changing ethical and psychological character of the detective, and of his nemeses. The crime story in film, television and in other new media may also be addressed to facilitate an analysis of changing cultural contexts for the crime story.

Students doing social semiotics will learn a variety of skills in social and textual analysis. These skills are vital to an understanding of communication, society, and culture. The unit will offer insights into the history of the rise of semiotics, especially from the work of Roland Barthes onwards. The unit combines theory with practice in analysing and producing text in a variety of media. It also looks at the contexts of textual production, ranging from general examples to issues of multicultural and postcolonial social analysis.

This unit assesses the various social, political, scientific and electronic technologies that serve some cultures whilst discriminating against others. The lectures are broad in scope but will at times focus specifically on Indigenous Australia and the kinds of issues around race and racism that emerge within technological practices of management, filtering and representation. Globalisation, localization, ethnicity and identity will be explored along with many different kinds of technology, including those that generate the mass media, to analyse the ways in which technologies play a part in race and racism.

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?

This unit introduces students to ways of thinking about the body in late modernity. Drawing on several theoretical approaches, including psychoanalysis, phenomenology and feminism, it examines the body as a site of cultural inscription and a symbol of the social order. Key concepts include: the mind/body split; disgust and taboos; the creation of borders, surfaces and depths; and the plasticity of bodies in culture. Tutorial work will vary according to student interest, but may include such things as: carnival, pregnancy, body modification, beauty practices, yoga, fashion, and the post-human, as well as the body politics of gender, race and class.

This unit aims to explore contemporary understandings of power and its various manifestations in the modern world. Numerous themes are considered including informal and formal mechanisms of power, the uses and abuses of power, resistance, plus various examples of "powered" sites. The unit examines the relation between power, violence and the state. The unit concentrates on a few, influential theorists of power. Particular attention is paid to how power has an impact on the production of culture.

This unit examines theories of human nature from a variety of historical and disciplinary perspectives. It engages with, and encourages the student to evaluate, conceptions of the human - some of which have had wide currency in the broader culture and some which have not. The unit also engages the idea of whether a unified conception of human nature is tenable at all.

This unit considers the relationship between narrative and trauma and writing and trauma. It looks at the discourses of trauma, including psychoanalytic and psychiatric, philosophical and that belonging to literary criticism. It considers the politics of testimony and trauma in history; the role of narrative in healing and the remaking of Self; the crises of the “witness” and the limits of narrative in recalling trauma in psychoanalysis, literature, and history. It considers the socially produced limits of narratives of trauma. It also considers the meeting point between trauma, its wound and writing. The unit canvasses a raft of life-writing and fictional writing whose subject is trauma and or traumatic experience.