This course introduces students to post-War and post-Cold War shifts in humanities paradigms in an increasingly globalised and interconnected world. These have been marked by a move away from conventional national and area studies models to more transnational approaches. We study theories of the postcolonial and the global, concepts such as diaspora, transnationalism and cultural hybridity, new approaches to comparative and world historical and literary exchanges, the reprisal of the ideas of cosmopolitanism, world citizenship and new humanisms. We focus on cultural and religious conflicts, on the rise of multiple voices of the world's marginalised and their expressive/narrative modalities as reflected in the rise of public history, memory studies and biography. Case studies will draw on material from Australia, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. This course will equip students with a deep understanding of the everyday human dimensions of the political, social and cultural impact of contemporary forms of world making in our era of phenomenal global shifts.

Key course topics:

• Post-War transnational and world models of knowledge-making: a survey
• Postcolonialism and Globalisation
• Diaspora, Transnationalism, Cultural Hybridity
• Cultural and Religious Conflicts and Convergences
• Cosmopolitanism and New Humanisms
• Life-Writing, Voice, Narrative
• Public History and Memory
• New Europe as transnational case study

Course aims:

On completing this course, students will have the knowledge and skills to:

1. Demonstrate understanding of the dynamics of world making in our post-War and post-Cold War era of phenomenal global shifts

2. Synthesise key concepts from postcolonial, globalisation, transnational and diaspora studies and demonstrate effective communication and independent conceptual thinking relevant a comparative and humanistic understanding of our contemporary world

3. Explain the modalities of global human conflict and think of solutions through a greater understanding of human diversity, and human belonging through ideas of the cosmopolitan and world citizenship.

4.  Be sensitized to the social, aesthetic, cultural and ethical challenges facing all humans as our lives and spaces areincreasingly intertwined with those of diverse cultural groups'

5. Interpret the many genres, historical, biographical, literary, visual through which contemporary lifeworlds of the global are represented.

6. Prepare students for careers demanding cultural intelligence and sensitivity - such as those in cultural institutions, the public service,  academia, international organisations like the UN and NGOs.

Learning outcomes:

1.     To gain skills in written and verbal expression for a variety of relevant professional and academic purposes that include essays and interpretive text.

2.     To develop skills in interdisciplinary thinking and the ability to apply theoretical ideas to case studies

3.     To gain methodological skills required for interdisciplinary humanities research. These includes data-collection, synthesising analysis, synthesising complex disciplinary perspectives on a common problem, and verbal and written presentation at the standard of a postgraduate degree.

4.     To gain understanding and a basic set of skills required for working in diverse professional environments.

• 2 essays of 3000 words each (80%)
• One in-class seminar presentation (20%)

All other courses listed in Writing World Histories and Lives sub-plan of Liberal Arts program.

• Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora, London: Routledge, 1996
• Avtar Brah and Annie Coombs, Hybridity and Its Discontents: Politics, Science, Culture, London: Routledge, 2000
• Robert Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in theory, culture and race, London: Routledge, 1995.
• K. Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, New York: W.W. Norton, 2006
• Edward Said,  Humanism and Democratic Criticism, Mew York: Columbia University Press, 2004

• David Held and Antony McGrew, ed. Globalization Theory: Approaches and Controversies,  Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007

• David Goldberg and Ato Quayson, ed. Relocating Postcolonialism, Oxford: Blackwell, 2002

• Leela Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1998

• Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000