Australia

This course analyzes coastal zone management. Lectures cover waves in the ocean and calculation of properties such as wavelength from the parameters of wave period and water depth; surf zone processes and coastal groundwater: wave setup, wave run up, rip currents, and long shore currents; how the processes of saltwater intrusion into agricultural areas are generated and managed; sea level rise, the Bruun rule, and coastal sediment budgets; constitutional and legislative frameworks looking at the State of the Marine Environment Report; and evolution of integrated coastal zone management in Australia. Case studies are used to examine specific issues in Australia. The Barrier Island case study looks at geomorphic and ecological characteristics and processes, land use and development history, and contrasting approaches to management. The Venice case study examines environmental history, coastal structures, catchment impacts and management, resource exploitation, coastal subsidence, storm surge, ecological and engineering solutions, and sustainability. Students also participate in field trips to the Gold Coast and the Port of Brisbane.

This course examines the basics of creating music for video games. Aspects of the function and crafting of music for game use including, sound and visual interactivity, indeterminacy and the music dramatic narrative will be examined.

This course focuses on the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples since colonization began, exploring key social, political, and legal events; issues and debates; and the people behind them. Students learn about important historical events and issues in areas such as civil and political rights, land rights, self-determination, and reconciliation, developing an understanding of how these have shaped the shared history of Australia.

This course examines the fundamentals of Bayesian inference, including the specification of prior and posterior distributions, Bayesian decision theoretic concepts, the ideas behind Bayesian hypothesis tests, model choice and model averaging, the capabilities of several common model types, such as hierarchical and mixture models. It also looks at the ideas behind Monte Carlo integration, importance sampling, rejection sampling, Markov chain Monte Carlo samplers such as the Gibbs sampler and the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, and use of the WinBuGS posterior simulation software.

This course offers an introduction to the field of urban morphological analysis, and a range of mapping techniques relevant to urban design. This also entails analysis of the forces that produce urban morphology and the forms of spatial practice that are integral to it. The focus of the course is on examining how various techniques of urban mapping can creatively contribute to different urban design and planning concepts, approaches, and outcomes. The course uses the Elizabeth Street corridor (from Flinders Street Station to the Victoria Market) in central Melbourne as a laboratory for exploring these themes. This is an urban transect that slices through a range of morphological conditions, densities, spatial practices, experiences and transformational prospects. Each student visits this site on a weekly basis throughout the semester, mapping different layers of data. It is understood that not all students will commence this class with the necessary mapping skills; however, it is expected that students will be familiar with Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, or can become so within the first two weeks. Additional tutoring is provided for those who need it so that all students are able to produce basic morphological maps for presentation in digital format. Students are not assessed on graphic or IT skills during this initial phase, but the acquisition and deployment of these skills will be required for the rest of the semester.

This course focuses on the role of women in five of the world’s major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It examines the traditional theological principles and the practical laws that have directly impacted, for better or for worse, upon the lives of women within these religious traditions. It also explores historical and contemporary challenges to doctrines and practices that are seen to undermine women’s equality and freedom. Rather than study each religion in serial fashion, the course adopts a comparative, thematic methodology, tracing key themes across the religions concerned. Those themes include femininity and divinity, historical founders’ attitudes to women, key scriptural texts and their interpretation, life-cycle rituals, marriage and divorce, sex and procreation, clothing and social freedom, worship and purity, and leadership and authority.