Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Synopsis In recent years historians have come to recognise the significance of `popular culture' in the context of a wider, anthropological understanding of `culture'. This subject sets out to investigate selected aspects of popular, and what in the twentieth century is sometimes called mass, culture. Particular emphasis will be placed on the negotiation between imported cultural norms and the local environment. Topics to be studied will include colonial folk ballads; the early exploitation of the environment for recreation; the development of organised sport (and the emergence of Australian Rules football in particular); the popular theatre of pantomime and melodrama; children's books; the travel books of Idriess, Clune and co.; the advent of the cinema, gramophone and wireless; the development of magazines such as the Australian Women's Weekly; the culture of suburbia and the impact of television. Overall the subject will seek to explain the tendency for notions of Australian identity to be defined in terms of popular culture.
Assessment (8 points) Two seminar papers (1500 words each): 50% + One research essay (3000 words): 50%
Assessment (12 points) Two seminar papers (2000 words each): 40% + One research essay (5000 words): 60%