This unit introduces students to Indigenous Australia in a stimulating, in-depth study of traditional and contemporary forms of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural expression. Ranging from the Dreaming and ancient knowledges, ceremony and lore, to the lives and societies of Indigenous peoples today, students learn in areas such Aboriginal kinship, language, story and art, Indigenous agriculture, aquaculture and astronomy, and contemporary Indigenous cultures and cultural currents.

This unit of study focuses on the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples since colonisation, exploring key social, political and legal events, issues and debates, and the people behind them. Students will learn about important historical events and social issues in areas such as civil and political rights, land rights, self-determination and reconciliation, developing an understanding of how these events and issues have shaped the shared history of Australia. The unit introduces a decolonising methodology that will underpin further work in the major.

Indigenous Art and Culture engages with traditional and contemporary art and cultural expression, offering students an opportunity to critically and creatively explore a variety of artistic and creative practices undertaken by Indigenous Australians. Students will study traditional cultural expression such as oral storytelling and song-cycles, ceremony and art, and contemporary cultural expression in the visual arts, literature, performance, theatre, film and music.

In Indigenous Research Methods, students will be encouraged to understand and critically evaluate the range of methodologies used in Indigenous Studies. This will serve as preparation for students' independent research project, also undertaken in the third year, providing them with an understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural protocols and ethical approaches to Indigenous Studies research.

The Indigenous Studies Research Project unit integrates and applies learning undertaken throughout the major, combining theoretical and practical components in a research project on an approved topic, supervised by an academic who teaches into the major. This project would be undertaken with a view to continuing into an Honours year for interested, capable students.

This unit of study is the first stepping stone in the Indigenous Australian Studies (IAS) Major. Structured around three themes - representation and identity, invasion and colonisation, and resistance and agency - the unit critically examines the historical, social and political contexts of the survival and growth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies and cultures. Students will gain a critical awareness of traditional and contemporary Indigenous Australia, and develop a decolonised critical framework which underpins the IAS major.

The aim of this unit of study is to critically explore the philosophical, legal and cultural foundations of Indigenous rights in Australia and internationally. The unit builds generic skills in philosophical and historical research and theoretical analysis, encouraging students to develop an informed and independent assessment of contemporary issues in Australian and international Indigenous rights.

This unit examines the historical and contemporary social determinants of Indigenous health. Students have the opportunity to explore sociological and Indigenous health frameworks and identify a range of successful strategies that have worked to improve Aboriginal health and wellbeing. A highlight of this unit is the opportunity to hear from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who are passionate about contributing to such improvements. Students also explore ways to collaborate with Aboriginal people and communities to facilitate self-determination in Aboriginal health.

This unit of study will provide students with grounding in contemporary theories of Indigenous identity and an understanding of current critical writings on identity formation in colonised societies. It will enable students to formulate strategies and methods for understanding and working with notions of identity in relation to Indigenous peoples. In this unit students explore the history and formation of Indigenous identity. Combining contemporary theoretical and historical approaches they will explore the ways in which Indigenous Australians were constructed by colonial discourses. Students explore the multi-layered facets of identity that are held in and on the Indigenous body and identify and critically analyse sites of power, Indigenous knowledges, processes of cultural dissemination and transmission and consider how Indigenous identities were racialised, gendered and subordinated. Students will explore the arena of cultural politics and investigate the ways in which Indigenous agency has manifested, for example, through innovative critical perspectives and through creative re-presentations in a variety of media, in film, documentary, photography and prose.

Gamilaraay is an Indigenous Australian language from the mid-northwest of NSW that is currently undergoing revitalisation. This unit of study will provide students with a basic competence in speaking, understanding, reading and writing Gamilaraay sufficient to recognise and construct simple utterances in the language, and to understand its relationships with other languages. Classes will progressively develop each student's abilities in the language.

This unit of study examines how community development approaches can influence health and wellbeing outcomes for Indigenous peoples. Students will examine past approaches, current trends and theories underpinning community development. Students will reflect on their role in working with Aboriginal communities to develop processes that build capacity in health delivery and support Indigenous self determination. This unit also considers the nature of ethical research practice within an Indigenous community setting.

This unit explores the key issues and debates that have shaped the development of Indigenous History in Australia. You will examine how Indigenous responses to colonialism have been variously interpreted, explore Indigenous perspectives on the writing and representation of Indigenous History in historiography, documentary and feature film and literature, and examine the legacy of the past in the present. The unit also considers questions of historical evidence, the uses of evidence and the different ways of presenting history.

This unit explores theories of race and racism focussing on Indigenous Australian race relations. Opportunity is provided to understand the development of Racism as an impact on individuals - victim and perpetrator; and systemic systems at local, national and international levels. The unit explores what racism means in the social justice agenda through issues such as: equity and anti-racism; in particular the direct impact of racism as a tool in the creation of social and economic disadvantage in Australian Indigenous communities.

Colonised peoples are often classified according to Western intellectual, political and historical priorities. This unit of study critically evaluates Western classifications of Indigenous Australia and the Pacific by investigating three key themes: Indigenous histories and representation, colonising and decolonising Indigenous peoples and international contexts. It presents revised understandings of the lived realities of Indigenous cultures through exploring regional and cultural identities, neocolonialism, nuclear testing, gender relations, resistance and overpowering colonialism.

Australia holds an unenviable record for its loss of Indigenous languages and actively pursues a de facto policy of English monolingualism. This unit examines how Indigenous communities are resisting this trend and reviving so-called extinct languages through examining the roles of language policy and planning, community activism, language centres, education, technology and the linguistic processes involved. Lecture and seminar content is supplemented by a fieldwork excursion (at additional cost) to a regional language centre and associated school programs.

Formal schooling has been a critical frontier of engagement for Indigenous peoples in both colonial and postcolonial states and societies. This course examines in comparative and historical perspective both the school institution and Indigenous schooling experience across a variety of social and political contexts, including those in Australia and the Americas. Critical consideration is given to school curriculum and culture as well as Indigenous socio-cultural conceptions and practice, for identity, including Indigeneity, citizenship, power, resistance, agency, and contemporary circumstance.