AUST3330 Reading Australian Culture

2019

4.5

1 x 1-hour lecture weekly
1 x 1-hour tutorial weekly

1 AUST1001 - Australian Studies: Identities
1a AUST1001A - Australian Studies: Identities
Must Satisfy: ((1 or 1a))

AUST2007 has been successfully completed

A grounding in Australian society and culture.

This multi-disciplinary topic is designed to familiarise students with contemporary Australian cultural theory and theorists and with current debates within this broad field of knowledge. It will focus on the Australian context and trace the links between international and Australian cultural theory. The relationship between cultural theory and an understanding of Australian society, culture and 'everyday' practices will be explored and dominant ways of making meaning will be examined. Students will learn to interpret popular cultural texts and understand the role of the Australian media in disseminating cultural meaning. Social constructs including gender, race, ethnicity and sexuality will be explored for their bearing on our 'everyday' Australian practices. Students will develop their critical and analytical skills to enable them to become more sophisticated readers of cultural artifacts. This topic builds upon earlier Australian Studies topics, notably Australian Studies: Identities and Australian Studies: Social and Political Cultures. Students will also find this topic relevant across the spectrum of humanities and social science degrees.

The topic aims to provide students with the opportunities to:

• engage with a range of cultural theorists and theories

• extend the issues and debates approach to a social and theoretical analysis of contemporary Australian life

• begin to identify and employ Cultural Studies research methodologies in studies of Australian society and culture

• consider the relationship between Australian Studies and Cultural Studies

• connect theory to particular examples of Australian practice

• privilege the everyday and the popular as 'sites' of analysis

• understand approaches to representation and how contemporary society constructs and communicates its meanings and values

• explore social constructs such as gender, ethnicity, race and sexuality and their bearing on our lived everyday practices

• explore the relationship between international cultural theory and the Australian context

For successful completion of this topic students will:

• demonstrate an understanding of a range of cultural theories and their application in Australian contexts

• apply a theoretical analysis of aspects of contemporary Australian practice

• begin to identify and employ research methodologies of value to study in Australian Cultural Studies

• demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between Australian Studies and Cultural Studies

• identify the importance of the everyday and the popular as 'sites' of analysis

• demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between international ideas and theories and the Australian context

• demonstrate an ability to research and present ideas in group contexts