The Internet is a medium undergoing constant change, while also becoming progressively integrated into everyday life. Web Transformations critically examines recent changes in the technology, language, design and social networking on the internet. It introduces key skills in evaluation, strategy, interaction design and writing for the web within a historical context. Beyond the web, it evaluates the implications of emerging applications such as mobile technologies, internet of things and social media.

Are online encounters different from face-to-face encounters? What is the difference between the real and the virtual? How do online identities relate to offline identities? This unit of study introduces students to key perspectives, themes and debates in the expanding world of online interaction and cultural production including social media, art, games, virtual worlds, augmented reality and participatory culture. Is the term 'cyberworld' redundant in a world where online and offline experiences, cultural forms and identities have become increasingly enmeshed?

Digital Arts explores the ways digital and new media technologies are being used to transform cultural production, distribution and reception in the visual and performing arts, film and popular culture. Students will learn about the changing aesthetic, cultural and technical dimensions of new digital technologies and will develop the critical and analytical tools with which to discuss and evaluate digital art works and the ways that audiences interact with them.

Computer games have emerged as distinctive cultural forms, with their own aesthetics, design cultures, user communities and academic study. This unit of study uses historical and critical theories on games and play to explore how computer games work and to examine their complex interrelationships with culture. Drawing on readings from games studies, new media and design, students will analyse a range of different games and use hands-on exercises to develop their own game design concept.

This unit introduces students to the media industry and policies in selected countries in East Asia, namely Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. In addressing the topics, the main features of media in the region are discussed and compared. The unit will be multi-disciplinary, covering various aspects of mass media in the region. These include the social and cultural role of the media, political and economic justification of state control, and implications of the emergence of new communication technologies.

Cultural studies explores everyday life, media and popular culture. It shows us how we can make sense of contemporary culture as producers, consumers, readers and viewers, in relation to our identities and communities. How do various cultural texts and practices convey different kinds of meaning and value? Drawing upon key approaches in the field, students will learn how to analyse cultural forms such as advertising, television, film and popular music.

How does gender organise lives, bodies, sexualities and desires? How does gender relate to sex and sexuality? Are there really only two genders? How and why is gender such an integral part of how we identify ourselves and others? This unit introduces students to foundational concepts in the study of gender and critically engages with questions of identity, sexuality, family, the body, cultural practices and gender norms in light of contemporary gender theories.

This unit traces the history of screen cultures from film to apps, focusing on how popular media is used to produce and represent masculinity and femininity. Students will consider cinema, television, videogames, the internet and mobile devices, asking how changing media forms and practices impact on our gendered identities and everyday lives.

The idea of the 'animal' infuses western knowledge about what constitutes the 'human'. From 'humanism' to 'posthumanism', this unit teases out various animal/human connections; classifying, seeing, domesticating, eating, making pets, writing, thinking about rights, rhetoric and representation. How do gender, race and class play out in the realm of the animal/human? What cultural formations support and also challenge the line between animal and human?

Violence is one of the most prevalent themes in popular culture and public discourse today. It shapes our lives in all sorts of ways, both real and imagined. Incorporating concepts and theoretical tools from gender and cultural studies, this unit will examine the construction and representation of violence in relation to sexuality, transgression, difference and power.

This unit introduces students to cultural theories about race and ethnicity and uses these theories to examine representations of racial minorities across a range of media such as film, literature and performance within multiple national contexts. By interrogating the relationship between these representations and those of other identity categories including gender, sexuality and class, it provides a complex understanding of how 'race' as an institutional force and lived experience helps shape perceptions of ourselves and others.

In this unit of study we will examine the ways in which feminist and other cultural theories have used bodies and sexualities in order to theorise difference and identity. The body and sexuality have been shown to be a major site for the operation of power in our society. We will look at how bodies and sexualities have given rise to critical understandings of identity. The unit of study will be devoted to working through some of the major theories of sexuality and embodiment, and the analysis of cultural practices.

Although it originated in the study of women¿s oppression in male-dominated cultures, gender studies increasingly considers masculinity an effect of power rather than its means. Via a range of case studies we consider the changing expectations around masculinity in practices of production, consumption, embodiment, domesticity and intimacy. This unit makes frequent reference to the representation of masculinity in various genres of popular culture that deal with boyhood, adolescence, initiation, manhood, romance, athleticism, heroism, crime, vulnerability, submission, depression and defeat.

This unit examines the representation and practices of intimate relations focusing especially on the intersection between intimacy and constructions of gender. Divided into three sections, the unit will examine theories of love and friendship, contemporary cultural representations of love, desire and friendship, and the ethics and politics of erotics. This unit will also examine new technologies of intimacy, and discuss their implications for gender and sexuality.

This unit examines academic, public and popular ideas about youth and practices of youth culture. It will introduce students to some of the current parameters for studying youth cultural forms and practices and the significance of various conceptions of youth. Points of focus will include popular images of youth and youth culture, discourses on (im)maturity, development, and training, and critical perspectives on youth as an identity and an experience.

Consumerism is a contradictory cultural formation. It is a source of meaning, pleasure and identity, but also a cause of environmental degradation, social injustice and, for some, individual alienation. This unit sets out some of the ethical, environmental and social problems associated with consumerism, and examines in detail some of the creative, ingenious and determined responses to these problems.

Understanding our place in a changing environment is a 21st century priority. This unit uses feminist frameworks to investigate how environmental problems are shaped by intersecting factors of gender, race, sexuality, ability, economic status, and colonialisms. Drawing on examples such as climate change, toxic contamination, water privatisation, and resource extraction, this unit examines the material and conceptual links between human and non-human natures, and cultural, political, economic and social forces.

This unit explores public policy as a major force shaping how Australians inhabit and perceive their settler colonial nation. Using ethnographic and cultural media, it explores where we get our ideas about policy, inequality or social change. How is policy enacted and who and what does it shape?

Cultural Studies was widely discussed as one of the "New Humanities" in the 1990s, but a long history of debates about and theories of culture precede the discipline, and the processes of deciding what are the key texts and concepts of Cultural Studies is ongoing. This unit overviews foundational and emerging critical concepts and writers in the field. Students will also undertake reading and analysis exercises designed to help them come to grips with using "theory" in their own work.

Our knowledge of everyday life is often taken for granted and yet cultural studies has developed some fascinating approaches to critically and creatively exploring the ordinary and extraordinary details that make up everyday life. Through case studies of everyday practices, spaces and experiences (waste, fashion, dreaming, eating, shopping, 'selfies') the unit explores key thinkers of the everyday as well as a range of research and writing methods (observation, thick description, close reading) that have helped to illuminate everyday life.

In this unit students will apply advanced methods from gender and cultural studies to examine experiences of belonging and formations of community. Students will analyse how power produces and regulates communities, identities and belonging. They will question the assumption that community is based on the unity and similarity of citizens and their location in specific cultures and places, and critically examine alternatives such as difference, diaspora, and other forms of sociality. Students will evaluate different theories of community in local, national and international contexts, and in relation to feminism, democracy, cosmopolitanism and hospitality.

This unit draws on and extends prior learning in gender studies and enables students to formulate innovative research projects in a variety of areas relating to sexualities and their transformation, including the history of sexuality, theory, sexual research methods, narrative, archives, affect, kinship and space. The unit engages those research perspectives and interdisciplinary methodologies from across the social sciences and humanities that coalesce as queer theory.

Honours is an intensive year-long program of advanced study based around research. Honours is undertaken after successful completion of a Bachelor degree and where the overall mark is a minimum credit average (70%). Entry into Honours is selective and work at this level is challenging. Honours is available in most subjects areas taught in the Faculty, and which are listed under Tables A and B in the Handbook. Students will complete a thesis and coursework seminars throughout the year. For further information contact the Honours Coordinator in the department or consult the Handbook entry for the relevant subject area.

Refer to GCST4011

Refer to GCST4011

Refer to GCST4011

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.

What can we learn from non-textual approaches to understanding music? The primary goal of this unit of study is to study music not as a composer, producer, performer, listener or audience member, but as an ethnographer. That is, analysing music through an observational, experiential and intellectual understanding of how people make and take meaning from music.

Can the concept 'mental illness' be a valid one? What might delusions tell us about the structure of the mind? What assumptions underlie attempts to classify mental disorder? Can we be justified in compelling people to submit to psychiatric treatment? This unit will examine philosophical questions raised by mental disorder and our attempts to understand/treat it, and will connect psychiatry to debates in philosophy such as the mind/body problem, the concept of a person, and the possibility of knowledge.

This unit offers a critical introduction to the major schools of thought in contemporary political philosophy organised around the theme of inclusion and exclusion. The inclusive ambitions of liberal political theory will be confronted with objections from thinkers motivated by concern with various aspects of social and political exclusion based on categories such as gender, cultural difference, and statelessness.

In this unit of study we will examine the main strands of sociological thought and identify the key concepts, debates and issues in the development of sociological theory. It will focus on the writings of leading social theorists and sociologists, their contribution to the development of a distinctly sociological theory, and their continuing impact on current theoretical debates in sociology. Topics covered will include: the origins of sociology; industrialism; classical theorists; sociology of urban society; interactionism and everyday life; psychoanalysis; sociology of knowledge and culture; feminist challenges to sociological paradigms; postmodernity and the future of society. This unit is mandatory for Sociology majors.

This unit of study introduces students to a range of qualitative research methods in common usage throughout the social sciences. The unit has both analytical and practical components. With regard to the former, students are introduced to the methodological issues in contemporary sociology and their impact on the research process. An emphasis will be placed on developing a critical ability to read sociological research, with an eye to understanding its methodological adequacy, the political and ethical issues that arise whilst conducting research, and debates over interpretation and the production of knowledge. With regard to the latter component, students will undertake practical exercises in order to learn to appreciate and use a selection of research approaches, methods and techniques.

This unit of study will examine key issues and debates within current sociological writings on culture. It will assess critically a range of cultural issues pertinent to structuralist, poststructuralist, deconstructionist as well as postmodern accounts of contemporary culture. An aim of this unit is to link concepts of culture to specific case studies, in order to facilitate the joining of theory with research. This aim will be achieved through addressing various issues, including analysis of cultural representations, popular culture, as well as the role of agency within cultural formations.

The unit introduces students to the analysis of crime, detection and punishment in their historical, social, political and cultural contexts. It discusses the major theoretical perspectives on the explanation of crime as well as the role and functions of punishment. It examines a range of issues in understanding crime and criminal justice, including the cultural life of crime, forensic knowledge, policing and prisons, and youth and juvenile justice.

This unit explores the cultural history of and intersections between sexuality, race and rock music in the United States from Elvis to Beyonce. Influenced by black and working-class cultures, and with sexuality embedded in its form and practice, rock music challenged and transformed existing norms of family, sex and gender. Through subjects including bwomen of colour, glam rock, disco and hip hop, students will learn that rock music provided a realm for rebellion, freedom, community and profit and has transformed the United States..