University of Melbourne

This course examines concepts of trauma and memory as historically and culturally contingent, asking what counts as trauma, for whom and under what circumstances. The course will open by tracing history of the concept of trauma in psychoanalysis and medicine, followed by critical perspectives from feminist, queer, transgender, critical race, and body studies perspectives. It also looks at different sites, forms and representations of trauma in literature, films, art, oral narratives, memoirs, photographs, and social movements.

This course examines classic texts and major themes in phenomenology and existentialism, a tradition that shaped continental European philosophy throughout much of the 20th century. It focuses on central figures in that tradition, such as Sartre, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Husserl. Themes to be discussed include the aims and methods of phenomenology, consciousness and perception, being-in-the world, our relation to others, authenticity, freedom and embodiment. 

This course examines the sociology of family life. It covers key theoretical perspectives on the family and personal life and examines the political and cultural context of family life. A key theme of the course will be to identify the ways in which family life is changing and exploring the implications of those changes for individuals, society and social policy. It examines social and demographic trends in marriage, fertility, cohabitation, singlehood and the organization of paid and unpaid work in families and households. Other issues and topics that will be addressed including: gender and family life, dating and relationship formation, the impact of reproductive technologies, same-sex relationships, 'boomerang' kids and fatherhood.

This course examines the ways that crime is constructed and popularized. Given the localized context of colonial Australia, it pays particular attention to crime as a settler colonial construct. The course requires that students read and think critically about their own assumptions, media representations, and the ways that powerful groups define, measure and regulate crime. By examining a range of topics including youth crime, street crime, crime in the home and crimes of the powerful, this course will consider how understandings of crime inform and produce a range of state responses and varied experiences of justice/injustice.

This course examines a broad range of both poetic genres and poetic styles. It covers poetry by a diverse variety of historic literati (from the 1800s to the 2010s), with emphasis on modern trends in current poetics.

This course examines myths and rituals associated with the ancient world. It focuses on topics in the literature and material culture of antiquity including the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the myths of Homer, Greek tragedy, Roman epic, epitaphs commemorating the deceased, and archaeological evidence from funerary and other ritual contexts.

This course examines life drawing to explore the human body as a subject. It will explore how we visually perceive the human body, how we think about the body and how we theorize the body within art practice. Within the practical studio classes students will be introduced to drawing through the foundational skills of observation and drawing techniques. These skills will be developed and extended so that students are able to explore and visually articulate their observations of the human body with increasing sophistication and complexity. Lectures will introduce the history of the human body in art, focusing on the particular role that drawing the human body has played from pre-history to the present day.