Current course offerings

Please Note: Course profiles marked as not available may still be in development.

Course description

Colonial Australia's establishment in 1788 positioned it as a classic Enlightenment project. In addition to solving British population problems, it also became a location of experiment with new environments, populations, and possibilities. Crucially, Indigenous and European cultural practices, perspectives, and traditions came into conflict and had to be negotiated from the outset. Geographically distant from Europe and located with ancient and continuing cultures in the Asia-Pacific region, Australian colonies were places of considerable interest to northern hemisphere philosophers and commentators. This course explores how convictism, distinctive natural environments, and forms of both settler and Indigenous identities were represented and debated in rich written and visual traditions. We draw on a wide range of visual, literary, dramatic, and musical forms produced by First Nations, settler, and external commentators to explore how the Enlightenment project played out in Australia in both its utopian and dystopian forms. The course also examines how contemporary writers and artists continue to engage with foundational texts of the nation and to reinterpret and remake them for new purposes.

Archived offerings