University of Sydney

How do musicians achieve and maintain their health? This course explores the science of music, health, and wellbeing through the study of health promotion, a range of health issues (including mental health), and practical strategies for incorporating healthy lifestyles into everyday life. It examines longstanding debates in both scholarly and practice-based fields of music and health. Topics include mindfulness, music psychology, Alexander Technique, yoga, tai chi, performance science, growth mindset programs, music therapy, mental health, workplace safety, and physiotherapy.

This course examines Australian archaeology. It covers topics such as community-based archaeology, decolonization and how the past informs contemporary issues, providing requisite knowledge for working in the archaeological sector in Australia. Following the stratigraphic sequence of an archaeological excavation, this course moves from the present through British invasion and into the deep past to reveal the layers of extraordinary capacity, diversity and complexity of Australia's First Peoples.

This course provides a thematic study of historical and contemporary book arts in the Islamic world, drawing on the art of painting and calligraphy as well as key texts to engage with the foundational interrelations between text, image, orality and other forms of sensory experience. Starting with early Qurans, it moves to pre-modern illustrated manuscripts, and modern and contemporary works of art inspired by manuscript cultures, exploring histories of authorship, portraiture, patronage, workshop practices, audience and perception, as well as the collecting and display of manuscripts in museums. 

This course gives a general introduction to water resources, how these are linked the hydrological processes, and how engineering plays a role in the management of water resources. It covers the hydrologic cycle of water as a whole and its specific components including: geophysical flows of water throughout the environment, dynamics of precipitation formations, transformations into runoff, reservoir and lake dynamics, stream flow discharge, surface runoff assessment, calculation of peak flows, the hydrograph theory, ground water flows, aquifers dynamics, concept of water quality and water treatment methods and units. The topics mentioned will be covered in both qualitative and quantitative aspects. Use will be made of essential concepts of energy, mass and momentum conservation. 

This course gives students the tools to analyze, research and respond to real world issues such as globalization, crime, social justice, community breakdown, and racial, sexual and indigenous inequality.

This course examines the classification of natural hazards within Earth systems and explores key examples of geological, atmospheric, hydrological and biological hazards and explores the social relations and processes that turn hazard events into disasters. Given the vast majority of disasters are climate and weather-related, basics of weather, climate and climate change will be explored. Students will be introduced to key concepts in the study of hazards and disasters including underlying theories and models as well as critically interrogating concepts of vulnerability and resilience. Basic elements of the process of disaster risk reduction will be introduced. Case studies and examples from Australia and around the world will be drawn upon to unpack the nuances of hazard and disasters.

This course examines the relationship between terror, fear, and the exercise of social and political power. It explores themes of genocide, torture, war, terrorism, and violence, analyzing the production of the abject and victims as well as the symbolism and use of the body in the exercise and experience of power. 

This course examines the development of Romanticism as a major movement in 19th-century philosophy. Topics include the relation between art, nature, and scientific knowledge; the meaning of human freedom; skepticism; and the idea of a system of knowledge.

The fate of the European Union hangs in the balance. The crisis concerns more than economics. Do Europeans feel European, or is Europe simply a collection of states with a history of close interactions and devastating wars? Will Europe overcome its dilemmas? How do contemporary social theorists respond to the political, social, and cultural questions raised by the crisis? The course probes these issues to deepen understanding of Europe in the context of contemporary social theory

This course examines the historical and contemporary social determinants of Indigenous wellbeing. Through an exploration of holistic Indigenous health and wellbeing frameworks, students identify a range of successful strategies that facilitate self-determination and transform Indigenous health and wellbeing outcomes.