Australia

This course examines big ideas in sociology that help to explain the key changes and challenges facing contemporary societies. It covers social change, power and conflict, inequality, identity, risk, individualization, and networks. 

What is the meaning of love? Is it the same for different individuals and cultures at different periods? What is its relationship to desire, language and death? Why do the Greeks have three words for love and the English one? This courses explores the theme of love in a variety of national literatures including Arabic, English, Greek, French and Italian.

This course examines surfing's history, culture, and science with a unique practical immersion. Students will uncover the multifaceted nature of surfing in Australia, which will include examining surfing’s Polynesian roots in the First Nations cultures, its development by the modern surfing industry, as well as delving into the science that shapes the perfect wave. Students will examine the distinct surfing culture which has emerged and is still evolving through Australian music, film and literature. Students will also examine the effects of large businesses such as Billabong and Rip Curl on Australia’s surfing culture. 

This course examines  the history and foundational institutions and principles that underpin the Australian legal system. It covers current legal issues in Australia, and explores these in critical and comparative perspectives. 

This course examines the psychological principles behind persuasion to change behavior and then looking at how advertisers use each technique. It first discusses how to define and then understand the dynamics of behavior change, before looking at how to change behavior using a variety of techniques. 

This course examines the science of what enables individuals to operate at the peak of their potential, including the conditions that are thought to give rise to optimal motivation, emotional agility, resilience, and other factors that support wellbeing and performance. It explores skills and pathways for cultivating wellbeing while giving consideration to relevant individual differences and cultural factors. The content draws on a variety of disciplines, including psychology, education, philosophy, sports science, and organizational science. It covers the historical and philosophical views of wellbeing, motivation, and performance; the paradigm shift from problem-focused to strengths-based approaches; and the evolution from individual- to system-level perspectives of what contributes to wellbeing. 

This course examines the deeply intertwined relationship between literature and the city. On the one hand, the rise of the modern metropolis saw the production of new literary modes as writers responded to changing social and economic relations, new opportunities for self-fashioning and cultural exchange, as well as experiences of exploitation, segregation and exclusion. On the other hand, the literary imagination itself has produced indelible urban worlds and underworlds, from James Joyce’s Dublin, Virginia Woolf’s London or Claude McKay’s Marseille, to novels, short strories and speculative fictions that reimagine Singapore, Melbourne or Johannesburg. Reading widely across twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary geographies, students will engage with different genres of city writing – poetry, short story, novel, and graphic novel -- as well as read theoretical texts that explore key concepts such as the production of space, the flaneur, space and gender, the imperial/colonial metropolis and the global city.

This course examines what drives development interventions, their impacts on communities, and the ways they respond. It also explores the processes and influences that operate at a global level and that impact such fundamental concerns as human rights, population health, environmental and climate change, and migration. 

How does gender organize lives, bodies, sexualities and desires? How does gender relate to sex and sexuality? Are there really only two genders? How and why is gender such an integral part of how we identify ourselves and others? This course introduces students to foundational concepts in the study of gender and critically engages with questions of identity, sexuality, family, the body, cultural practices and gender norms in light of contemporary gender theories.