Monash University Handbook 2011 Postgraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Notes

Synopsis

This unit explores violences as a complex set of practices, from a range of disciplinary perspectives although with an overall emphasis on the social sciences. Topic areas covered in any year may include state-sanctioned violences like institutionalised torture and capital punishment; interpersonal violences such as rape and child abuse; and intellectual and political debates over ethics, research methodologies and epistemologies, and issues of representation. This unit will also entail examining violences via cross-cultural perspectives in order to highlight differences and similarities throughout the world.

Objectives

Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:

1. Appreciate the plural character of the phenomenon 'violences'.
2. Show a critical awareness of the diversity of understandings of and proffered solutions to violences.
3. Present a debate or issue central to the project of trying to eliminate violence from social life.
4. Demonstrate some understanding of the methodological, epistemological, ethical and political issues in researching a form of violence.
5. Appreciate the relationship of work on violences to the 'crisis in representation' in the social sciences.

Assessment

Written work: 80% (9000 words)
Seminar work: 20%

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Brett Hough

Contact hours

3 hours (1 x 2 hour seminar and 1 x 1 hour film screening) per week

Prohibitions

ATS4379, ASM4100