Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Synopsis This subject offers a research-oriented study of the intellectual life of Melbourne during its period as capital of the self-governing colony of Victoria. Students will be encouraged to undertake original investigations in such fields as (1) daily and weekly journalism; (2) medicine and science; (3) clubs, societies and academies; (4) responses to intellectual innovations (eg Darwinism, spiritualism, socialism, `the new woman', the ideas of Herbert Spencer); (5) literature and the arts; (6) libraries and the book trade; (7) the professionalisation of intellectual work; and (8) significant individuals. The aim of the subject is to demonstrate the vigour and variety of intellectual debate and its constituent discourses with special attention to influences which are still active at the present day.
Assessment Seminar contribution and two 4500-word research essays to be developed from seminar papers