Cirrus@Austlit

This subject will introduce students to a diverse body of contemporary Australian cultural texts, ranging from literary fiction and non-fiction to film and drama. Focusing on work produced over the last decade it examines the confluence between a national culture and national identity, especially with reference to textual representations, truth, memory and history, power and marginality. The subject will provide students with key critical and analytical skills acquired through close textual readings and discussions in class, web-interactive exercises and small-group projects. Students will be taught to consider the implications of the use by an author of a particular genre and to explore ways of responding to it confidently and persuasively. As an introductory subject it will provide a foundation for further studies within the discipline of English and will endow all students with strong written and verbal communication skills.

Subject Objectives:

On successful completion of this subject, students will be able to: 1. Demonstrate detailed and critically sensitive mastery of a significant national body of literary and visual culture. 2. Comprehensive knowledge of the historical background to the creation of a distinct Australian culture, particularly as it has been shaped and absorbed the impact of diverse aesthetic influences across various waves of migration. 3. Detailed critical thinking about form and how it relates to historical context, notably to a postcolonial understanding of the novel, the social self, the material and the aesthetic. 4. Use of bibliographic and electronic resources in the formulation and debate of theses, presentation of evidence, oral and written presentation, and the production of a bibliography. 5. Ability to assess and apply current and historical cultural critical and theoretical reading to primary texts to reach an understanding of the complex relations between text and context.