The Australian Experience (HIST1201)
Information valid for Semester 2, 2025
Course level
Undergraduate
Faculty
Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
School
Historical & Philosophical Inq
Units
2
Duration
One Semester
Attendance mode
In Person
Class hours
Lecture 2 Hours/ Week
Tutorial 1 Hour/ Week
Incompatible
HT135
Assessment methods
One essay; research proposal ; tutorial participation; take home exam.
Course enquiries
Associate Professor Martin Crotty (Semester 2, St Lucia, In person)
Study Abroad
This course is pre-approved for Study Abroad and Exchange students.
Current course offerings
Course offerings | Location | Mode | Course Profile |
Semester 2, 2025 (28/07/2025 - 22/11/2025) | St Lucia | In Person | Profile unavailable |
Please Note: Course profiles marked as not available may still be in development.
Course description
The Australian Experience is designed to present a broad introductory survey to some of the key issues and themes relating to Australian society and culture across a wide time-frame. We begin before colonisation, with ancient Indigenous cultures, and end in the more recent past. Across this period, Australia underwent dramatic transformations in social, racial, cultural, economic and environmental terms. Throughout the course, we will gain an understanding of the brutalities of the colonial process; the relationships of the Europeans to this 'new' land; the developing society in the Antipodes; the new cultural forms of nationalism in the late nineteenth century; and finally to the importance of White Australia. In the twentieth century, we will consider the impact of wars and Depression, and the cultural shifts of liberation movements later in the century. The course is designed to introduce students to some of the leading scholarship and debates in studies of Australian history, society and culture. While questions of gender, race and class are important organising themes, the course is also designed to engage with contemporary lines of critical inquiry such as questions of space, place and landscape, memory and historical imagination, identity politics, popular culture and post/colonialism. Our key focus is upon the many different and contested stories that make up our understanding of the national past, the intention being to convey its multi-layered and complex texture.