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ENGL574 Australian Literature: Black and White

Updated: 29 June 2012
Credit Points 6
Offering Not offered in 2013
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 ABEN473 or ENGL273 or ENGL373 or ENGL271 or ENGL371 (prior to 1998)
Notes

offered in even numbered years
Combined Units ENGL374 - Australian Literature: Black and White
Coordinator(s) Russell McDougall (rmcdouga@une.edu.au)
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.
Materials Textbook information will be displayed approximately 8 weeks prior to the commencement of the teaching period. Please note that textbook requirements may vary from one teaching period to the next.
Disclaimer Unit information may be subject to change prior to commencement of the teaching period.
Assessment Assessment information will be published prior to commencement of the teaching period.
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, and recognise how both 'whiteness' and 'blackness' are constructed in literature as categories of 'racialised' meaning;
  3. show a good critical and historical knowledge of the operation and effect of ideology and discourse in Australian literature;
  4. 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);
  5. understand the complexity of both the ethical issues and the creative strategies involved in Indigenous representation in Australian cultural texts; and
  6. 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 discussion 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 500 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 discussion board. 		True True True
4 Information Literacy
This unit 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 discussion board progress is a criterion of assessment. 		True True True
   

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