Australia

This course examines the main factors that determine the overall levels of production and employment in the economy, including the influence of government policy and international trade, and addresses the level of employment and economic activity in the economy as a whole. It covers money, interest rates, financial markets, inflation, unemployment, and economic policy. Students taking this course should have a prior knowledge of mathematics.

This course introduces the basic principles of fluid mechanics and thermodynamics. Fluid mechanics influences a diverse range of engineering systems (aircraft, ships, road vehicle design, air conditioning, energy conversion, wind turbines, and hydroelectric schemes) and also impacts many biological and meteorological studies. Thermodynamics could be defined as the science of energy. This subject can be broadly interpreted to include all aspects of energy and energy transformations. Like fluid mechanics, this is an important subject in engineering, underpinning many key engineering systems including power generation, engines, gas turbines, refrigeration, and heating. Real world engineering examples are used to illustrate and develop an intuitive understanding of these topics.

This course examines 20th century Australia from the time of Federation to the Apology in 2008. 20th century Australia was a period of vision and revisioning, a time of grand schemes and grand failures, and of intense questioning around notions of identity, place, race, and nation. This course examines the events that Australians lived through and the issues that preoccupied them, their cultural lives and the myths, legends, visions, and prejudices through which Australians imagined themselves and others. Major topics include: Federation, World War One, the Depression, World War Two, immigration, the Petrov Affair, Vietnam, the Dismissal, Mabo, the Tampa, and the Apology. These events become sites for analyzing concepts of nation, the politics of race, ideologies of domesticity and the family, social movements, the impact of modernity, the cinema, the experience of the cities and the bush, and importantly, Australia's place in the region and the world.

We all want to be happy and to live a worthwhile life. But what is happiness? Why should we want it? And how do we get it? These are among the most fundamental questions of philosophy. Students evaluate the answers of major thinkers from ancient and modern traditions. They also consider the implications of current psychological research into the causes of happiness regarding the question of how to live well as individuals and as a society.

This course examines transport planning and management of transport systems. It covers basic concepts on the interaction between transport and land use as well as with the overall urban context, integrated transport planning process, transport data and modelling, transport economics and finance, travel behavior and travel demand management, public transport planning, and active transport planning.

This course offers an introduction to ethics and associated philosophical issues. The basic concepts and techniques of moral reasoning will be introduced, along with some of the major moral theories. Particular policy issues in which ethical reasoning plays a crucial role are examined, such as justice, paternalism, globalization, international aid, and bioethics. Challenges to moral reasoning such as cultural relativism and psychological egoism are also examined.