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.

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.

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.

Diversity has become one of the most important issues in contemporary society. Increasingly communities and workplaces encourage us to support diversity. This unit introduces students to a range of diversity issues informed by race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality and dis/ability and the importance of cultivating understanding and respect for difference. It will appeal to students interested in social, economic and cultural marginalisation.

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. In particular, it interrogates the relationship between these representations and those of gender and sexuality. In so doing, it provides a complex understanding of how 'race' and 'gender' as institutional forces and lived experiences help 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 the experience of youth and youth cultural forms and practices. We will pay particular attention to the ways young lives are gendered and the role gender plays in the institutions and other contexts in which young people live. Other points of focus include changing conceptions of youth, relationships between policy and youth, images of youth and youth culture, and discourses on (im)maturity, training, and identity.

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.

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.

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.

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. This unit examines the different ways we construct knowledge of violence and how representations of violence may be both compelling and confronting. It focuses on the interconnections between categories of sex and violence within culture.

Interdisciplinarity is a key skill in fostering agility in life and work. This unit provides learning experiences that build students' skills, knowledge and understanding of the application of their disciplinary background to interdisciplinary contexts. In this unit, students will work in teams and develop interdisciplinarity skills through problem-based learning projects responding to 'real world problems'.

This unit is designed for third year students to undertake a project that allows them to work with one of the University's industry and community partners. Students will work in teams on a real-world problem provided by the partner. This experience will allow students to apply their academic skills and disciplinary knowledge to a real-world issue in an authentic and meaningful way.

This core unit of study develops scholarly skills of research, writing and argumentation, via the close examination of diverse examples from research in Gender and Cultural Studies. It caters to students in the early stages of thesis conception and development, guiding them in the reflexive development their own research practices and writing skills.

What is the relation between femininity, masculinity and culture? Does sexual difference affect our identity and, if so, how and in what circumstances? What are the connections between cultural and racial difference and sexual difference? Drawing on the work of major cultural theorists and feminist thinkers this unit examines various theoretical conceptualizations and popular representations of gender; the issue of embodiment; and how sex and race are articulated within gendered conceptual frames.

This unit examines modernism, modernity and postmodernism through a range of 20th century concepts, practices and movements, including the avant-garde; feminism; the 'everyday'; mass culture; cinema and visual technologies; ethnography and the invention of 'culture'; and the emergence of postcolonial thought. The unit will provide an important foundation for some of the key intellectual ideas in cultural studies.

This unit examines theories of consumption in regards to cultural and media products and practices, with a specific focus on gender. Drawing upon a wide range of feminist media and cultural theories, we will critically analyse different forms of belonging and identity that are created through these practices. We will also pay close attention to the critiques of globalisation and consumption, theories of the 'citizen consumer' and the realities of geo-political and economic inequalities that underpin many forms of consumption.

This unit examines cultural policy across a range of sectors such as museums and heritage, the arts, media, and the 'cultural industries'. It will provide theoretical perspectives and practical insight into policy formation processes in Australia and internationally. The multiple actors and rationales that shape policy and ground claims for its relevance amid social change and cultural diversity are considered. Students learn how to analyse policies in relation to the institutional, social and political contexts of their emergence.

Cultural studies involves the study of texts and practices that constitute the ways that people live. In this unit, students explore and analyse the concepts and debates that recur in this field, such as representation, cultural relativism, subjectivity, agency, identity, difference, and everyday life. Students will focus on how arguments about culture can be developed in line with these and other concepts, through various forms of evidence and methods of analysis of culture.

Based on a close reading of individual authors, this unit introduces students without in-depth background in cultural theory to key thinkers for contemporary cultural studies. Students will learn how theoretical fields as Western Marxism, psychoanalysis, critical race theory, feminism, queer theory, science studies, and environmental thinking have shaped the development of cultural studies. They will also develop skills for relating cultural research to the cross-disciplinary traditions of structuralism and poststructuralism as these have been taken up in different intellectual contexts around the world.

Research towards and preliminary writing of an Honours thesis of 18-20,000 words, in collaboration with the supervisor, approved by the Honours coordinator.

Completion and submission of an Honours thesis of 18-20,000 words, in collaboration with the supervisor, approved by the Honours coordinator.