Australian Studies

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.

This course examines what a national literature means, and how it makes itself significant to the nation and beyond. It will think about colonialism and colonial writing in Australia, modes of Australian social realism, the emergence of an Australian modernism, ways of representing region, suburb and city, postcolonialism in Australia, 'multicultural' writing, and Indigenous literature. The focus is on the novel, short stories, poetry and genres such as romance and the Gothic.

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 important role of fire in Australian landscapes. It covers how fire has shaped the diversity of life in Australia over millions of years, how people have been using fire to modify Australian landscapes for millennia, and how contemporary fire patterns influence human society and ecosystems. Topics include combustion and fire behavior, prediction of fire patterns, fire ecology of plants and animals, Indigenous burning, climate change and future fire, and approaches for using fire, managing fire and sustaining biodiversity.