Cultural Studies

The courses in this section are all conducted in English. 
 

These courses can be taken

• as electives in some language majors and most extended majors offered by the School (please check your plan)
• for the World Literatures and Cultural Studies single major,
• or as electives for the Bachelor of Arts or other plans. 
  
  For Asian LTSC and MSTU courses, please see Asian Studies. 

Communication Studies

COMU1002  Crossing Bridges: Communicating Between Cultures
How people negotiate meaning across cultural boundaries, with special reference to the differing expressions of politeness, cultural sensitivity, negotiation, explicit and covert language, and their relation to local and international cultures.

World Literatures and Cultural Studies

LTCS1000 Issues in Contemporary Asia
Aims to give insights into the place of gender in culture and the place of culture in gender.

LTCS1005 Issues in Chinese Culture
This course introduces salient features of traditional and Contemporary Chinese culture, including the value systems, norms and ways of life found within Chinese Diaspora.

LTCS1006 Great Books of the Western Tradition: 1600 to the Present
Introduction to the international dimension of the Western literary tradition drawing on literatures written in English, French, German, Russian and Spanish. The course aims to give students the opportunity to read some "great books" with the understanding that this brings. 

LTCS1012 Great texts of the Asian Tradition: From Ancient to the Present
This course aims to introduce students  to masterpieces of Asian literary tradition, with special focus on the cross-cultural and international dimensions.

LTCS2001 Women in Asian Literatures
Examines literature writtenby or about women in Asia.

LTCS2004 Environment and Asia: A Cross Cultural Approach
Focusing on environmental issues in Asia, this course explores cultural aspects of contemporary environmentalism that tend to be absent in current environmental discourse.

LTCS2005 Japan and the World
Surveys Japan's cultural, economic and diplomatic links with other countries, especially Australia. No knowledge of Japanese language required.

LTCS2006 Japanese Popular Culture
Study of post-war Japanese popular cultural genres and their antecedents.

LTCS2009 The Great Stories of China
This course will explore China's unique literary heritage in a survey spanning the Analects of Confucius, Daoism, the classical novels Journey to the West and The Story of the Stone, and the writings of outstanding modern and contemporary authors.

LTCS2013 Tales of the City: Representation of the Metropolis in Modern Culture
Through a focus on representations of the modern city in film and text, the course will pursue comparative approaches to the semiotics of culture and the 'reading' of cultural phenomena.

LTCS2014 A History of Erotic Narrative
Study of erotic representations in classical texts originally written in Italian, French and Spanish, highlighting historical shifts that occurred in emergence of modern erotic narrative.

LTCS2017 Where East Meets West: Issues in Contemporary German Culture and Society
A contemporary course (conducted in English) examining significant and contraversial issues in German culture and society since unification.

LTCS2018 Books the Nazis Burned: German Literature and Society 1914-1945
Literary and philosophical works burned at the notorius Nazi demonstrations on May 1933 are used as starting points for a historical study of German society from 1914  to the Third Reich.

LTCS2019 Germany's Past: Society and Culture from the Middle Ages to the End of the Nineteenth Century
An examination of Germany's socio-historical development into a nation state and of major trends in German literature, art, music and architecture over twelve centuries. Knowledge of German is not a prerequisite for this course.

LTCS2021 Reading Russia: Literature and Society, 1825-1917
Landmarks of Russian literature in translation; the making of the Russian reading public and its role in the development of Russian society and culture.

LTCS2022 Imagining Latin America in the 20th Century
Throughout the 20th century Latin America has experienced a symbiosis between its cultural production and its social and political realities. This course aims to deepen students' knowledge of Latin American cultural production with a particular emphasis on the 20th century, for example: "costumbrismo", muralism, indigenism, "modernismo". The course will look at major social and political movements and examine how these have interacted to fashion Latin America's cultural debates and production.

 LTCS2023 Korean Popular Culture: Korean Wave
This course explores the portrayal of Korean popular culture from the Korean War to present day. The course will help students to understand the current Korean popular cultures represented by Korean films, TV dramas and pop songs.

LTCS2024 Francophone Cultures
An introduction to major contemporary issues in Francophone societies from within a cultural studies framework. The course aims to provide students with the necessary contextual understanding to better comprehend written and audiovisual texts relating to Francophone cultures.

LTCS2026 Cultures of Latin America
An introduction to the several factors that shape the diverse cultures of Latin America, including the native peoples of the continent, the impact of European conquistadors and colonizers, the ideals of independence, and the contemporary continental order under the strong influence of the US. 

LTCS2030 Modern Japanese Literature and Society
This course will explore the manner in which modern Japanese literature reflects issues of concern in Japanese society: family life, aging population, war and individualism.

LTCS2031 Books that Shook the World
This course attempts to give students an insight into the ways in which notions of tradition, canonicity, artistics movements and cultural construction can be problematised.

LTCS2310 Russia Now and Then
Introduction to Russian society & culture; special reference to climate, geography and other formative forces and to Russian cultural achievement. 'Today's Russia' as product of and heir to this heritage.

LTCS2400 Indonesian Today: Media and Culture
This course provides an introduction to some of the major social, religious and cultural issues facing contemporary Indonesia in regional and global contexts. The course will examine these issues through media reports and a selection of the works of contemporary Indonesian writers and commentators in translation.

LTCS3000 The Politics of Theory in Latin America
This course will study the place of Latin American cultural thought within the Western culture. It will discuss questions related to centre/periphery, appropriation/rewriting, and orthodoxy/subversion in cultural studies in order to address two interrelated sets of issues: first, that Latin American thought has been constructed as a marginal paradigm in the symbolic space of Western culture; and second, that theoretical products specific to Latin America - Mestizaje, Magical Realism, Liberation Theology - elaborate on European systems of thought and radically transform them.

LTCS3001 Doing Things with "French Theory"
Current work in the humanities pays a great deal of attention to what it calls "French theory", and students perceive a need to be knowledgeable about these matters. There are at least two traditions, one imported into France from various strands of modernist European thought, and the other imported by the English-speaking world under the French label. This course aims to study some of the key work called "theory" in relation with these habits of use.

LTCS3002 Translating and Interpreting Studies
Introduction to non-language specific techniques of translating and interpreting and to the professional, theoretical and ethical issues involved.

LTCS3004 Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies Seminar
This course is primarily designed to allow students to fomulate their own mini research project. This project will be related to the texts, authors, artists, movements or themes covered in the courses done in the course of the Major in World Literatures and Cultural Studies. Students will attend a tutorial with other students enrolled in the course and discuss their project at all points of its conception, formulation, elaboration and completion. In tutorials, students will also read selected texts and approach them as a reading group, which is to say as a group of individual readers helping each others' comprehension of the text and offering alternative viewpoints and perspectives. Students will also have at least fortnightly consultations with a member of staff assigned to them and who will have specialist knowledge in the area in which the student has decided to do his/her individual study project.

LTCS3005 Research in Asian Studies
The course will expose learners to the salient theories and methodologies employed in research in the interdisciplinary field of Asian Studies.

LTCS3007 Asian Studies Individual Studies Project
Individual guided reading and writing project in a selected area of Japanese, Chinese, Korean or Indonesian studies, suited to each student's interests and skills. The project topic can be from such areas as language, literature, culture, society, religion and politics.

Film Studies

MSTU2001 From Buddha to Bruce Lee: Asian Visual Cultures
This course examines the interaction of visual cultures (art and film) within Asia, and between Asia and the "West". We will focus especially on East Asia (China, Japan, and to a lesser extent Korea) and also include South-East Asia, especially Indonesia. Lectures will introduce students to the cross-cultural nature of art and more recently film in these societies. The course takes a thematic approach to Asian visual cultures, ranging from representations of Buddha to symbols of Asian masculinity such as Bruce Lee.

MSTU2011 Contemporary German Cinema
The course will explore major themes & trends in East and West German cinema since the late 1970s. Apart from the historical & narrative context of these films, it will also look at issues of authorship, directorship, genre, gender and marginalization.

MSTU2012 European Film Today
This course explores political and aesthetic trends in European film since the 1992 GATT treaty and the subsequent acknowledgment of the so-called "cultural exception" for international trade, that made it possible for European governments to keep subsidising their national audiovisual - including cinema - production as a protectionist measure against the indiscriminate import of Hollywood products.

MSTU2017 Auteur Cinema in French & Spanish
Introduction to French and Spanish cinematographies through analysis of movies that reflect strong artistic conceptions of a particular movie-maker. Many film directors managed to impose their artistic personality on an industry dominated by audience numbers.

MSTU2018 Russian Cinema
Study of modern Russian cinema in its sociocultural context. Creativity, innovation and ideological constraints in work of major directors. No knowledge of Russian required.

MSTU3001 Contemporary Korean Film and TV Drama Review
By viewing the films or TV dramas developed from 2000, the course studies the contemporary Korean films and TV dramas, and the representations and messages which are embedded in them. Students will have opportunity to explore the contemporary Korean scoiety and new phenomena of cultural practices. Students will be equipped with the knowledge of current cultural, and social phenomena of Korean society.

Applied Linguistics

SLAT2001 Introduction to Second Language Learning and Teaching
Introduction to the processes of second language learning in the classroom.

SLAT2002 Introduction to Computer-Assisted Language Learning
Introduction to the use of computers in language teaching and learning (CALL).

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