Exploring Central Australia

This subject is not offered in 2011.

Exploring Central Australia is an interdisciplinary subject based on an intensive field trip to Central Australia. The subject prompts academic inquiry in the context of a first-hand encounter with the environment and cultures of the region. It focuses on the contested histories and contemporary realities of race and culture in the town of Alice Springs, and also explores the 'meanings' of Uluru for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. This subject is taught through a combination of seminars at the University and an intensive field trip (at additional cost) to Central Australia, which includes the opportunity to learn from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous inhabitants of the region. Students will be encouraged to produce research and writing that investigates issues, challenges stereotypes, and draws upon their fieldwork observations and interactions.  

• Appreciate the range and diversity of representations of central

Australia across visual, filmic and written texts

• Comprehend the experiences of Aboriginal and non-indigenous Australia in central Australia, and the political, social and cultural implications of

these experiences.

• Build an understanding of Central Australia through seminars, a field

trip, and independent and collaborative research.

Class presentation 10% (during the semester), a 1000 word writing exercise 30% (due before the mid-semester break), a 500-word essay proposition 10% (due before the semester break) and a 2500 word research essay 50% (due during examination period).

Hurdle requirement: Students must attend all the seminars and the field trip in order to pass this subject. Assessment submitted late without an approved extension will be penalised at 10% per day; after five days, no late assessment will be accepted. In-class tasks missed without approval will not be marked. All pieces of written work must be submitted to pass this subject.

A Subject Reader and other texts are provided to all enrolled students.

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Environments
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science
• Bachelor of Engineering

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

• Research: through competent use of the library and other information sources, and the definition of areas of inquiry and methods of research
• Critical thinking and analysis: through recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion, and by determining the strength of an argument
• Thinking in theoretical terms: through lectures, tutorial discussion, essay writing and engagement in the methodologies of the humanities and social sciences
• Understanding of social, ethical and cultural context: through the contextualisation of judgments, developing a critical self-awareness, being open to new ideas and possibilities and by constructing an argument
• Communicating knowledge intelligibly and economically: through essay writing and tutorial discussion