AUST11-105: Australia: Culture and Identity

Description

Australia: Culture and Identity introduces students to themes such as the bush, the beach, and the suburbs, which are commonly found in Australian culture, and contextualises those themes in the land’s cultural history as well as global cultural movements. It explores the ways in which class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, environment and other factors are debated and mediated in popular understandings of Australian identity. Through guided and individual critical analysis of film, television, social media, sport and other forms of cultural representation and practice in Australia, students will learn to independently recognise the ways in which Australian culture reflects broader realities in Australian society, and ongoing discourse about what it means to be Australian. 

Subject details

Learning outcomes

1. Demonstrate a coherent knowledge base of the evolution of Australian culture from the start of British occupation to the present, be aware of and understand common themes in Australian culture and the ways in which those themes reflect complex questions about Australian identity, and grasp key concepts necessary to conduct critical cultural analysis
2. Collect, analyse and organise information and authoritative interpretations about cultural practices and representations, to independently identify some of the meanings embedded in cultural representations and practices, and to communicate knowledge and analysis, with supporting evidence and citations, in a clear manner.
3. Demonstrate an understanding that cultural practices and representations reflect the shifting interests, preoccupations and values of a society and be able to recognise the ways in which those practices and representations embody and engage with, and shape, those values.

Enrolment requirements

Subject outlines

• January 2020 [Standard]
• September 2019 [Standard]
• January 2019 [Standard]
• September 2018 [Standard]
• January 2018 [Standard]
• September 2017 [Standard]

Subject dates

Future offerings not yet planned.