Overview | Summary of Courses

Offered By:	ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
Areas of Interest:	Indigenous Australian Studies

The minor in Indigenous Australian Studies enables students with an interest in Indigenous Australian studies to take a set of interrelated courses in different disciplines without the normal prerequisite required in each course. The major is interdisciplinary, in which it is possible to combine courses from anthropology, archaeology, art, art history, history, linguistics, music, and gender sexuality and culture for a broadly based understanding of Indigenous Australian societies and cultures, both past and present. Taken together the courses provide a comprehensive insight into Indigenous Australian studies, including Aboriginal origins, their occupation and adaption to the continent, their traditional and contemporary, social cultural, artistic, musical and linguistic practices, the impact of European colonisation, the history of the interrelationship between Aboriginal people and other Australians, the place of Indigenous people in Australian society today, and issues of representation.

 

Learning outcomes

• An understanding of why Aboriginal societies and cultures have been so important in the history of European social theory
• A knowledge of the diversity of Indigenous societies and cultures prior to colonisation
• An ability to locate developments in Indigenous Visual Art in the broader contexts of political, social and International Visual culture
• An ability to assess much of the public discourse around Aboriginal culture
• An understanding of the public debates and reporting of issues in Indigenous affairs in Australia and an ability to deconstruct them
• A knowledge of the place and significance of language in Indigenous cultures
• An understandings of how attitudes to Aboriginal history have changed over time, in response both to a changing political climate and the impact of Indigenous perspectives on historical writing.

Requirements

12 units from the completion of the following compulsory courses:

ANTH2005 - Indigenous Australian Societies and Cultures (6 units)

ANTH2017 - Indigenous Australians and Australian Society Today (6 units)

 

12 units from completion of elective courses from the following list:

ARCH2004 Australian Archaeology (6 units)

HIST2022 Indigenous Australian History (6 units)

GEND2021 Trauma, Memory and Culture (6 units)

LING2016 Language in Indigenous Australia (6 units)

MUSM2088 Music in Indigenous Australian Society (6 units)

ARTV2021 Indigenous Australian Visual Culture (6 units)

ARTH2098 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art (6 units)

The information published on the Study at ANU 2012 website applies to the 2012 academic year only. All information provided on this website replaces the information contained in the Study at ANU 2011 website.