HSY2780

Imagining Australia's tomorrow 1838-1988

Mark Peel

8 points
* 2 lectures and one tutorial per week
* Second semester
* Clayton

Objectives In successfully completing this subject, students should develop a critical perspective on the contest over national, racial and cultural identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the links between visions of the future and arguments for social and cultural change; and the expression of difference in a variety of utopian, dystopian and polemical text including science fiction, adventure and crime stories. Students will also gain experience in the critical interpretation of a range of written and visual sources and the formulation of an independent research project based on primary sources.

Synopsis This subject will explore the ways in which various Australians have imagined and depicted the future, prophesying, inventing, celebrating and sometimes fearing what tomorrow might bring. The subject examines how different groups struggled to imagine and then produce `their' future at key moments in the past and in such spheres as political debate, popular culture, social protest, scientific, sociological and historical investigation, science and fantastic fiction, film and journalism. Finally, the subject will reflect upon contemporary debates about Australia in the twenty-first century.

Assessment Tutorial exercises (1000 words): 20%
* Essay (1000 words): 20%
* Research essay (3000 words): 40%
* Examination (1 hour): 20%

Prescribed texts

Peel M A little history of Australia MUP, 1997
White R Inventing Australia: Images and identity, 1788- 1980 Allen and Unwin, 1981

Recommended texts

Bolton G The Oxford history of Australia vol. 5 1942- 95, 2nd edn, OUP, 1966
Dixon R Writing the colonial adventure CUP, 1995
Grimshaw P, Lake M and Quartly M Creating a nation, 1788- 1990 McPhee Gribble, 1994
Macintyre S The Oxford history of Australia vol. 4 1901- 1942, OUP, 1986