University of New South Wales

The understanding we have of our nature as reasoning beings is a fascinating topic which has captivated thinkers for thousands of years. In this course we will chart its history and focus on the developments in the recent past.

Each of us has a self and an identity by virtue of being human. But do other living beings have a self? Do other living beings have society in the same way humans do? In this course, students will consider some traditional assumptions of selfhood (e.g., the capacity for reason, speech, and memory) from different sociological perspectives.

This course examines how cultural, social, political and economic dynamics shape landscapes, these being rural, urban, in transitions or ‘natural. You will garner a theoretical expertise for interpreting and making sense of different places, and how there are shaped by multiple dynamics across scales (from the local to the global). 

This course develops students skills and knowledge in 'expanded' sculptural practice through a focus on the iterative and process-based potentials of the medium. Through studio-based learning, students will develop skills in mold making and casting. Key themes and processes such as material transformation, translation, mirroring, inversion, and mimicry will be investigated in relation to broader strategies of installation art and considerations of embodied experience. 

This course examines concepts and methods of Building Information Modelling (BIM), its standards, and its application in design analysis. It covers BIM-based analysis of low carbon building design to achieve optimal design solutions and BIM to evaluate building performance.

The ‘Silk Roads’ are often considered to be the world’s greatest network of throughways that linked China to the Mediterranean world over land and sea. The historical development of Chinese culture and civilization cannot be scrutinized without a reflective understanding of the Chinese Empire’s dynamic interactions with the nomadic peoples and the Western world that were situated along the Silk Road. This course examines the geopolitical and cultural landscapes of Eurasia; the migration of peoples; as well as the spread of goods, religions, ideas, technologies, art and diseases between the East and the West. It explores the construction of an early form of globalization, and how it has contributed to the formation and dissolution of people’s ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural identities. This course ends by examining Chinese government’s grand initiative 'One Belt One Road', and inquiring about the way in which the geopolitics of the Silk Road region in the past still exerts tangible and long-lasting impact on the world today.

This course examines the main environmental and sustainability issues experienced by our society through the lens of a chemist. Students will discover how fundamental chemistry principles can explain the rise of many of these issues but also provide solutions to address them. It answers questions such as: how do human activities affect the quality of water leading to social justice issues? What is the effect of air pollution on our atmosphere and cities? Are solar panels or cloth nappies sustainability-conscious choices? Is plastic recycling worth it? Fundamental scientific concepts that we will explore include but are not limited to the greenhouse gas effect, how solar panels and other renewable energy devices work at the molecular level, the chemistry of waste and contaminants found in water, soil, and the atmosphere. 

This course examines the fundamentals of black and white analogue photography and the legacy of experimental image-making processes. Students will engage in experimental image-making processes using 35mm film cameras and darkroom processes, alongside camera-less photography techniques.

This course examines how human physiology facilitates exercise and how our bodies adapt over time following exercise training.