Asia’s immense impact on the world over the last 2-3,000 years has often been obscured and is rarely part of Australian common knowledge. Asia and the World provides all students, but especially those doing International Studies and Asian Studies, with a basic introduction to notions of Asia. Many things which are taken for granted as being Western, often have their origins in the East in some way. This influence extends to language, hamburgers, philosophical ideas and ways of illustrating what we see. This influence is not limited to the ancient past. Today Asian pop culture is reshaping Western pop culture and ideas and products from Asia are changing our lives in fundamental ways even if the origins are not obvious. Asia and the World highlights the irony of how reactions to Asia shaped Europe’s destiny and how its inventions and ideas have been adapted by Western states and often used to then dominate Asia in the colonial period. The contemporary rise of independent Asian nation states is reviewed and contextualised and the processes which obscure Asian influence are explained. Your view of why Australian/Western history and culture are the way they are may well change the way you see the world.

This course examines Australian history from 1901 until the present. Australians have variously been described as a nation of sporting champions, yet we lose more often than we win; of ‘battling’ when we live in relative wealth; and of settling in the ‘outback’ while we sprawl into cities. We’ve been characterised as a ‘classless’ society and an equal one, which is at odds with the experience of many women and unemployed people. We’ve been introduced as descendants of convicts and ‘Poms’ when our families are just as likely to have emigrated from Eastern Europe or Asia or lived on this land for thousands of years. Students in this course will learn how each of these descriptions have been evoked for a purpose. They are used by politicians willing to appeal to a particular constituency, and by opponents in debates about federation, immigration, aboriginal rights, welfare, the status of women, and the possibility of Australia becoming a republic. In this course, the trajectory of these debates, which have shaped Australian identity, will be explored in addition to the social effects of the 1930s Depression, the legacy of the Menzies and Whitlam Governments, Australia’s participation in war and its place in the global village. Students will have the opportunity to recall our long-felt deference to Britain, our more recent acceptance of our Aboriginal heritage, our brief flirtation as an Asian nation, and our current ‘coalition’ with the United States, and ponder where our future might lay.

As cities grow and develop their environmental impacts are concentrated locally but have impacts across the globe. Informed by a critical use of urban political ecology, this course focuses on the complex interaction between the social and material processes of urbanisation and environmental change. Students will be introduced to: the way urban development alters soils, water systems and biodiversity; energy and resource flows within and through cities; the contribution of cities to climate change and the impacts of climate change on cities. In the process of exploring these issues, students will be introduced to measures aimed at addressing the environmental impacts of urbanisation and creating more sustainable cities.

Misunderstandings often arise when speakers of different languages, or indeed speakers of the same language communicate. Some misunderstandings are easily identified and rectified or may be of little consequences. At other times there can be a complete breakdown in communication. Serious miscommunication can even result when neither party is aware that there is any problem. Both parties may think that the other is understanding perfectly what they are saying, though a major misunderstanding is unfolding resulting in misdiagnosis, mistreatment, gross injustice, financial penalty or the like.



The course seeks to identify and make explicit sources of misunderstanding through practical investigation of interactions in a range of contexts. It will specifically address the use of interpreters, the role of dialectal differences and different cultural scripts (including subcultures within the same language group). Practical means of identifying and minimising misunderstandings will be promoted.

This course will be of interest to a wide range of students, including students of Linguistics, Medicine, Nursing and other health professions, Law, Media, Education, Social Work, languages etc.

The course examines how the digital age has transformed politics around the world. Information and communication technologies have deeply changed both the private and public spheres, the internet has radically changed the way people communicate with each other and interact with the state and private corporations. It has reshaped our economies, and created new opportunities for political engagement and organization. Citizens use the internet to organise protests and boycotts, but the internet is also a space where individuals may become radicalised. It provides a democratised platform for the production and consumption of information, but also lends itself to the proliferation of “fake news”, echo chambers and hate speech. Governments attempt to enact laws that control, censor, or monitor online interactions. But private corporations are similarly interested to control and utilize the internet to gather data on current and future consumers, and to exploit commercial opportunities. Similar opportunities are also sought by criminal actors, who seek to use the internet to pursue criminal, aggressive and terrorist activities. How, then, ought the internet be governed? Who should have authority to control internet access and content? In this course, we will explore this complex web of relations, dangers and opportunities by tackling questions such as: should the internet be censored, and by whom? Should hate speech be prohibited? Who should control access to the internet? Should Facebook be nationalised? What is the value of privacy? What impact is the internet, and particularly social media, having on the human experience? What is cybersecurity and how do we achieve it? Does internet communication favour populist and authoritarian leaders? How do these issues relate to one another and to conceptions of network neutrality more generally?

This course investigates crucial interconnections between empowerment, gender and community development, examining the ways in which gender and community participation, influence development policies, processes and programs; and the extent to which development, gendered relations, and communities are transformed in the process. It examines key concepts and theoretical frameworks of development with a particular focus on the intersection of development terms such as community, participation, sustainability, gender, equality & empowerment, in light of current issues in development discourse and critical analysis of development practice and policy. In the course, then, we explore the use of certain concepts and ideals, such as empowerment, gender equality, sustainable development, as well as central issues in development practice and policy. These include the interaction between poverty and gender; the empowerment of women through work and microfinance/credit; and the proposed empowerment of communities (and countries) through the `girl effect?. The complexities of corporate community development are also examined, as is the practice of tourism (volunteer/cultural) as sustainable community development; the issue of gendered violence, legislation and human rights at the level of local communities; and an analysis of the Sustainable Development Goals from the standpoint of gender and the community.

This course will provide a foundation for students on the history of the affirmation, development and legitimization of Indigenous knowledge, theory and scholarship in Australia and internationally. Contemporary Indigenous knowledge present a counterpoint to colonial and post-colonial knowledge regimes as they are played out through education, politics, law and society among numerous other areas of the modern world. In investigating these knowledge structures students will learn about the diversity of Indigenous cultures in Australia. This will be counterpointed with study of key Indigenous cultures and associated texts in North America, Scandinavia and the Pacific. A focus will be placed on the student’s capacity to apply multi-knowledges and interdisciplinary approaches for both complex understanding and the requirements of working with Indigenous communities. From this base students, will learn about the importance of applying Indigenous cultural protocols in the Australian context and in the presentation of Indigenous perspectives in everyday academic, legal, political and economic work. Students will also learn to re-conceptualise problems and question cultural assumptions by negotiating appropriate methodologies to analyse, evaluate and work independently and cooperatively. A variety of methods will be used to achieve engagement, analysis and synthesis including appropriate use of technologies, film, the analysis of texts and learning from Indigenous Elders and academics.

This course prepares students for working in an organisation that operates internationally. Students are exposed to different aspects that underpin internationalisation decisions of a firm. They also learn about the input of different functional units within organisations in the success of its international operationists. The broad content themes include international strategy and organisation; entrepreneurial nature of international expansion; different modes of foreign market entry; internationalisation of service firm; international marketing, human resource management, and sourcing. Finally, students have an opportunity to explore ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the international context. The course develops skills in analysing cross-border business scenarios, identifying opportunities and risks entailed in various internationalisation decisions, appreciating the complexity of international business operations, and including ethics and social responsibility as significant factors shaping a firm’s behaviour in a home and host country(ies).

This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the principles of Marketing. There will be a focus on the management of the marketing activities and how marketing relates to overall organisational functioning, including the management of exchange processes between business units and consumers and between firms. It will include topics such as environmental analysis, industry and competitor analysis, objective setting, marketing strategies and marketing mix components such as pricing, distribution, product and service development and promotion including both traditional and digital marketing communication. Additionally, the course will provide opportunities for the practical implementation of the concepts covered and the development of problem solving skills by means of face-to-face seminars and tutorials and online learning.

Which youth crime prevention programs work? Is job market situation for university graduates in Australia improving or worsening? Why do some international students succeed in Australian universities, while others experience great difficulties? Are local media in Adelaide focusing more on the street crime than on the corporate crime? What is currently known about factors that lead to a happy and lasting intimate relationship?

This course will introduce you to the ways in which social researchers seek to answer such questions. You will learn how to formulate feasible research questions. You will be introduced to a variety of research methods that can be used to answer such questions. The course will demonstrate that each method has its strengths and weaknesses and that the best research is usually produced by a combination of methods.

The course will give you the basic tools to be an informed and critical user of social science research. You will learn how find the most up-to-date and highest quality studies on the topic of your interest. You will also apply the methodological reasoning acquired in the course to review the current research literature on a topic of your own interest. Finally, you will learn how to write well-structured analytical papers.