Australia

This course examines a range of African American-authored texts, including films, from the 18th century to the present to consider the relationship of race and writing, and the ways African American cultural expression contributes to and interrogates American cultural history. Issues covered include enslavement and freedom, and segregation and Civil Rights.

Why are some books considered classics while others are hardly read at all? How is the idea of the classic linked to debates about history, representation, excellence, and taste? This course answers these questions through in-depth, guided readings of a small number of major texts that have, at one time or another, been celebrated for their classic status. It considers whether literary classics must be difficult, innovative, representative, or popular; how they shape our judgements about literary tradition and value; and why they remain implicated in debates about sexuality, race, national identity, and class.

This course examines how sex, gender and sexuality are entangled with science and technology. How are our understandings of sex and sexuality informed by a history of scientific investigation? How do gender and location shape the production of scientific knowledge? How is science mobilized in claims that binary sex and gender have a natural and biological basis? And how can we use science and technology in the pursuit of feminist and queer goals? The course examines these questions from the perspective of feminist, queer and decolonial theories of science and technology. Key topics include: feminist objectivity; the false binary of nature vs nurture; the construction of biological sex; postcolonial science studies; reproductive technologies; and feminist and queer interfaces with biomedicalization.

This course examines creative writing. Exploring the theoretical and practical dimensions of developing a personal creative writing practice, the course emphases writing as a mode of intellectual, historical and aesthetic engagement with the contemporary.

This course examines race and racism in contemporary Australia. It introduces theoretical tools from sociology to assist us in understanding how race and racism operate in Australia, who benefits from racism, and why racism is difficult to change. It looks at situations faced by First Nations people in their fight for sovereignty and justice, anti-migrant racisms, and how race, a social construction, is constantly shifting. The course also explores anti-racism efforts, why most are ineffective, and what might be more effective.

This course examines the theory of systems of ordinary differential equations. The emphasis will not be on finding explicit solutions, but instead on the qualitative features of these systems, such as stability, instability and oscillatory behavior. The applications are from biology, physics, chemistry, and engineering, including population dynamics, epidemics, chemical reactions, and simple mechanical systems.

This course examines some of the leading theories of justice in contemporary political thought and their implications for designing political institutions and public policies. Questions include: What is a fair distribution of society’s resources? Should parents be entitled to pass on their wealth to their children? Should offensive speech be regulated? Should our public policies treat every citizen the same or allow for gender and cultural differences? Can historical injustices be rectified? What does environmental justice look like? Are animals entitled to justice? In pursuing these questions, students explore topics such as rights, distributive justice, gender equality and multiculturalism, historical injustice and reconciliation, and pluralism and the clash of values. 

This course examines an elegant unified theory that includes the estimation of model parameters, quadratic forms, hypothesis testing using analysis of variance, model selection, diagnostics on model assumptions, and prediction. Both full rank models and models that are not of full rank are considered. The theory is illustrated using common models and experimental designs.

This course focuses on how to conceptualize and to practice sustainability in its broadest sense. Topics covered include the ethical aspects of management and organizational practice, corporate social responsibility, governance models in organizations and managing in diverse environments. 

This course examines the complex interplay between politics and the media. This interplay shapes public discourse and political outcomes as political actors strategically leverage media platforms to influence public opinion, while the media frames and reports on political events. Students will focus on examining theories of political communication, the media’s influential role in agenda-setting, and the critical examination of phenomena such as misinformation, fake news, censorship, propaganda, the rise of celebrity politicians, political advertising, satire, citizen journalism, and permanent campaigning.