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ABEN473 Australian Literature: Black and White

Updated: 23 April 2010
Credit Points 6
Offering
Responsible Campus Teaching Period Mode of Study Online Level
Armidale Semester 2 On line E - Wholly online unit
Armidale Summer Semester On line E - Wholly online unit
Intensive School(s) None
Supervised Exam There is no UNE Supervised Examination.
Pre-requisites candidature in a postgraduate award
Co-requisites None
Restrictions ABEN273 or ABEN373 or ENGL273 or ENGL373 or ENGL271 or ENGL371 (prior to 1998)
Notes

offered in even numbered years
Combined Units ABEN373 - Australian Literature: Black and White
Coordinator(s)
Unit Description

A study of modern Australian literature with special reference to writings by Indigenous authors. This unit focuses on both White and Black Australian literatures as translations of the physical frontier and as investments in the modern politics of identity. It traces the clash and conflict of Indigenous and settler cultures through to the contemporary process of reconciliation, by way of novels, plays, poems, short stories, autobiographies, journals and diaries - as well as theoretical writings on race and minority discourse in Australia.
Prescribed Material
Mandatory 		Text(s):

Note: Students are expected to purchase prescribed material

Remembering Babylon
ISBN: 9780099302421
Malouf, D., Vintage 1994
Text refers to: Semester 2 and Summer Semester , Online
Don't Take Your Love to Town
ISBN: 9780702235955
Langford, R., University of Queensland Press 2007
Text refers to: Semester 2 and Summer Semester , Online
Coonardoo
ISBN: 9780207198472
Prichard, K.S., Harper Collins 2002
Text refers to: Semester 2 and Summer Semester , Off Campus
No Sugar
ISBN: 9780868191461
Davis, J., Currency Press 1986
Text refers to: Semester 2 and Summer Semester , Online
Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the End of the World
ISBN: 9780947062026
Mudrooroo, N., Australian Book Group
Text refers to: Semester 2 and Summer Semester , Online
Capricornia
ISBN: 9780732289461
Herbert, X., Harper Collins 1986
Text refers to: Semester 2 and Summer Semester , Online
Inside Black Australia: An Anthropology of Aboriginal Poetry
ISBN: ARAC01
Gilbert, K. (ed), UNE Reprint
Note: Available from the United Campus Bookshops, UNE
Text refers to: Semester 2 and Summer Semester , Online
Disclaimer Unit information may be subject to change prior to commencement of the teaching period.
Assessment
Title Exam Length Weight Mode No. Words
Online Assessment 50% 3000
Assessment Notes
A supplementary set of online questions.
Relates to Learning Outcomes (LO) and Graduate Attributes (GA)
LO: 1-7 GA: 1-3, 6-8
Online Examination 50% 2800
Assessment Notes
Online examination: 2 questions at 1400 words each. Students have three days in which to complete it.
Relates to Learning Outcomes (LO) and Graduate Attributes (GA)
LO: 1-7 GA: 1-3, 6-8

Learning Outcomes (LO) Upon completion of this unit, students will be able to:
  1. show an awareness of the contested areas of literary study in Australia, participating in the key aesthetic, historical and political debates;
  2. apply informed and self-aware strategies for reading contemporary literature - Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and white Australian;
  3. show a good critical and historical knowledge of the operation and effect of ideology and discourse in Australian literature;
  4. recognise how both 'whiteness' and 'blackness' are constructed in literature as categories of 'racialised' meaning;
  5. engage with Australian literature from a position of 'powerful literacy', with a firm grasp of how literature feeds both off and into other cultural discourses (particularly on race, but also on class, gender and national identity) and with an ability to determine what the informing values of those discourses are (their relationship to ideology);
  6. understand the complexity of both the ethical issues and the creative strategies involved in Indigenous representation in Australian cultural texts;
  7. show an awareness of alternative histories and epistemologies of the Australian literary tradition, and how these relate historically to issues of social justice, as well as to the writing industry (publishing, editing, etc.).

Graduate Attributes (GA)
Attribute Taught Assessed Practised
1 Knowledge of a Discipline
Students will be able to demonstrate awareness of White and Black Australian literatures as translations of the physical frontier and as investments in the modern politics of identity 		True True True
2 Communication Skills
Students gain written communication experience in interactive bulletin board assessment. The online exam has an explicit instruction about the level of expertise required in written communication and format. 		True True True
3 Global Perspectives
The unit (particularly at 400 level) requires a global perspective on indigeneity. It includes links to indigenous web sites in Canada, the US, etc. and often has students in other parts of the world (Uganda, Ethiopia, etc.) discussing their own racial and cultural positioning with Australian students on the Bulletin Board. 		True True True
4 Information Literacy
Level-E Online, includes assistance with learning WebCt tools and functions, plus the ethics of electronic communication. 		True True
5 Life-Long Learning
Students reflect on their own racial and cultural self-knowledge in interactive forum and in historical perspective. They are invited to write their own open-ended conclusion to the unit, reflecting upon their progress in cultural awarenss. 		True
6 Problem Solving
The relationship between Black and White Australia is presented as one of the most pressing moral problems facing the nation and the unit requires students to grapple individually and collectively with that problem. 		True True True
7 Social Responsibility
Commitment to ethical action and social responsibility is a key part of the units pedagogy, and is embedded in the aims and objectives as well as in the assessment. 		True True True
8 Team Work
The Bulletin Board is a crucial part of the unit's pedagogy, and students are asked not to send individual mini-essays to it, but to respond interactively to each others messages. The degree of team learning evidenced in their overall Bulletin Board progress is a criterion of assessment. 		True True True
   

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