Representing Australia (Online) (ALL379)
Summer Semester / 2012

Texts

y separately published work icon Breath Tim Winton , Camberwell : Hamish Hamilton , 2008 Z1457075 2008 single work novel (taught in 21 units) 'Breath is a story about the wildness of youth - the lust for excitement and terror, the determination to be extraordinary, the wounds that heal and those that don't - and about learning to live with its passing.'
Source: Publisher's website
y separately published work icon The Slap Christos Tsiolkas , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2008 Z1739894 2008 single work novel (taught in 40 units)

'At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.

'This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event.

'In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires.

'What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that family can arouse. In its clear-eyed and forensic dissection of the ever-growing middle class and its aspirations and fears, The Slap is also a poignant, provocative novel about the nature of loyalty and happiness, compromise and truth.' (Publisher's blurb)

Description

This unit has a cross-disciplinary perspective and suits the interests of students undertaking major sequences in Literary Studies, Australian Studies and Cultural Studies. In its focus on a range of textual modes and genres (visual and verbal; popular and literary; childrens and mainstream) it aims to foreground the diverse and contradictory perspectives which inform representations of Australia. It will draw on theories of representation to illuminate cultural differences as they manifest in contemporary texts.

Assessment

Data retrieval and analysis 1000 words 25%, individual research project 1400 words 35%, DSO postings 1600 words 40%.

Other Details

Offered in: 2011, 2010
Current Campus: Online only
Levels: Undergraduate
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