units

APG4019

Faculty of Arts

18 September 2017 22 November 2024
Monash University

Postgraduate - Unit

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2013 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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12 points, SCA Band 1, 0.250 EFTSL

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LevelPostgraduate
FacultyFaculty of Arts
Organisational UnitMonash European and EU Centre
OfferedNot offered in 2013
Coordinator(s)Christina Twomey

Synopsis

This unit is designed to introduce students to a concept that has assumed increasing influence in the humanities and social sciences: transnationalism. Complex social and cultural interactions that appear to obey no laws of geography and statehood imply that national paradigms are no longer adequate for research and analysis: a transnational approach has emerged in their wake. A vast array of contemporary and historical phenomena, ranging from migration to gender, politics, race, ethnicity, literature, religion, citizenship, and identity have been viewed through the lens of a transnational perspective.
But the term is by no means self-explanatory, and this unit examines the intellectual origins and impetus for transnationalism and its relationship with globalization, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, postcolonialism, and world history. This unit is taught intensively in Prato, with students from the University of Copenhagen, and will study leading figures in the field of transnationalism. The unit is inter-disciplinary, so as to gain a sense of the variations in the application of transnational perspectives across the humanities, and the intellectual context that brought the new terminology into the academic spotlight.

Outcomes

Upon completion of this unit students will be able to :

  1. understand the evolution, application and interdisciplinary context of transnationalism
  2. explain how transnationalism is manifest both between and within nation states
  3. identify the way transnationalism has transformed scholarship in the humanities and social sciences
  4. engage in cross-cultural dialogue about the implications of transnationalism, by examining their own assumptions and comparing them with students from elsewhere
  5. develop and apply research skills to produce a case study of a transnational phenomenon, either empirically or within academic debates
  6. communicate the findings of their research in written form
  7. develop oral communication skills through participation in intensive workshops

Assessment

Prato Journal: research ideas, readings and connections(1000 words): 10%
Participation in workshop groups, discussions and seminars(Hurdle requirement)
Research proposal: identify empirical case study or academic debate that will be focus of the major essay. Develop bibliography(1,500 words): 20%
Research essay(6,500 words): 70%

Contact hours

This unit will be taught intensively in Prato over a period of 5 days, 6 hours a day. The students will engage in workshops in the morning, and have presentations from key figures in the field of transnational studies in the afternoons, followed by seminar discussions. It is also expected that the students will spend 3 hours per day in private study and class preparation while in Prato. They will then spend the equivalent of 6 weeks private study time completing assessment tasks set while in Prato, and submitted when they return to Melbourne.

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

European and European Union studies
History
International relations