AustLit

This unit introduces students to the disciplinary, historical and thematic features of the field known as Australian Cultural Studies. The unit takes as its focus constructions of Australianness drawn from Australian cultural texts, and publicly mediated Australian events and stories that both exemplify and influence understandings of nation, heritage, citizenship and the Australian social context. In studying the production of identity, Indigeneity, gender, sexuality, race, religion and politics from an Australian perspective, the unit utilises a number of Australian feature films, documentaries, television programs and items from both print an electronic media. These articulations of the Australian context are filtered though critical perspectives from across the broad range of cultural studies to interrogate how the term Australian is both used and made; how being Australian is performed as a complex and often contradictory phenomenon.