University of Sydney Handbooks - 2019 Archive

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Cultural Studies Descriptions

Cultural Studies

Major

A major in Cultural Studies requires 48 credit points from this table including:
(i) 6 credit points of 1000-level core unit
(ii) 6 credit points of 1000-level selective units
(iii) 12 credit points of 2000-level units
(iv) 18 credit points of 3000-level units
(v) 6 credit points of 3000-level Interdisciplinary Project units

Minor

A minor in Cultural Studies requires 36 credit points from this table including:
(i) 6 credit points of 1000-level core unit
(ii) 6 credit points of 1000-level selective unit
(iii) 12 credit points of 2000-level selective units
(iv) 12 credit points of 3000-level selective units

1000 level units of study

Core
GCST1601 Introduction to Cultural Studies

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1,Summer Main Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Assessment: 1xonline reflective learning journal equivalent to 2000wds (40%), 1xgroup presentation (10%), 1x2000wd Essay (40%) and Tutorial participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Cultural studies explores everyday life, media and popular culture. It shows us how we can make sense of contemporary culture as producers, consumers, readers and viewers, in relation to our identities and communities. How do various cultural texts and practices convey different kinds of meaning and value? Drawing upon key approaches in the field, students will learn how to analyse cultural forms such as advertising, television, film and popular music.
Selective
GCST1602 Introduction to Gender Studies

Credit points: 6 Session: Intensive July,Semester 1 Classes: 2x1hr lecture, 1x1hr tutorial Assessment: Tutorial participation (10%), 1x1300wd Tutorial presentation task (15%), 1x1200wd short Essay (35%), 1x1500wd long Essay (40%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
How does gender organise lives, bodies, sexualities and desires? How does gender relate to sex and sexuality? Are there really only two genders? How and why is gender such an integral part of how we identify ourselves and others? This unit introduces students to foundational concepts in the study of gender and critically engages with questions of identity, sexuality, family, the body, cultural practices and gender norms in light of contemporary gender theories.
GCST1603 Screen Cultures and Gender: Film to Apps

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Assessment: 1x2500wd Media analysis journal (online) (50%), 1x2000wd Take-home exercise (40%), tutorial participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This unit traces the history of screen cultures from film to apps, focusing on how popular media is used to produce and represent masculinity and femininity. Students will consider cinema, television, videogames, the internet and mobile devices, asking how changing media forms and practices impact on our gendered identities and everyday lives.
GCST1604 Introduction to Diversity

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 2x1hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Assessment: 1x 1000 Close Reading of Real World eg. (25%), 1x 1000 Close Reading of academic text (25%), 1x 2500 Final Case Study (40%), nax na Participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Diversity has become one of the most important issues in contemporary society. Increasingly communities and workplaces encourage us to support diversity. This unit introduces students to a range of diversity issues informed by race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality and dis/ability and the importance of cultivating understanding and respect for difference. It will appeal to students interested in social, economic and cultural marginalisation.

2000 level units of study

GCST2603 Animal/Human Cultures

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2-hr lecture/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Cultural Studies Assessment: Tutorial participation (10%), 1x500wd tutorial question task (15%), 1x1500wd short essay (35%), 1x2000wd long essay (40%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
The idea of the 'animal' infuses western knowledge about what constitutes the 'human'. From 'humanism' to 'posthumanism', this unit teases out various animal/human connections; classifying, seeing, domesticating, eating, making pets, writing, thinking about rights, rhetoric and representation. How do gender, race and class play out in the realm of the animal/human? What cultural formations support and also challenge the line between animal and human?
GCST2605 Representing Race and Gender

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Cultural Studies or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Gender Studies or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Diversity Studies Assessment: Tutorial participation (10%), 1x500wd group presentation (15%), 1x400wd journal (15%), 1x1000wd midterm Essay (25%), 1x2200wd final Research essay (35%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This unit introduces students to cultural theories about race and ethnicity and uses these theories to examine representations of racial minorities across a range of media such as film, literature and performance within multiple national contexts. In particular, it interrogates the relationship between these representations and those of gender and sexuality. In so doing, it provides a complex understanding of how 'race' and 'gender' as institutional forces and lived experiences help shape perceptions of ourselves and others.
GCST2612 Youth and Youth Culture

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1,Summer Main Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Cultural Studies or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Gender Studies or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Diversity Studies Prohibitions: WMST2012 Assessment: 1x500wd close reading exercise (10%), 1x1500wd Short Essay (30%), 1x2500wd Take-home Exercise (50%), Tutorial participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This unit examines academic, public and popular ideas about youth and practices of youth culture. It will introduce students to some of the current parameters for studying the experience of youth and youth cultural forms and practices. We will pay particular attention to the ways young lives are gendered and the role gender plays in the institutions and other contexts in which young people live. Other points of focus include changing conceptions of youth, relationships between policy and youth, images of youth and youth culture, and discourses on (im)maturity, training, and identity.
GCST2630 Consumer Cultures

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1,Summer Main Classes: 1x1.5hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Cultural Studies Prohibitions: GCST3603 Assessment: 2x500wd journal exercise (25%), 1x1500wd critical analysis (30%), 1x500wd final project outline (10%), 1x2000wd final project (35%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Consumerism is a contradictory cultural formation. It is a source of meaning, pleasure and identity, but also a cause of environmental degradation, social injustice and, for some, individual alienation. This unit sets out some of the ethical, environmental and social problems associated with consumerism, and examines in detail some of the creative, ingenious and determined responses to these problems.
USSC2604 Sex, Race and Rock in the USA

This unit of study is not available in 2019

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2-hr lectures/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 junior credit points from one of the following subject area; American Studies, Anthropology, Music, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, English, European Studies, Government and International Relations, History, International and Global Studies, Media and Communications, Performance Studies, Philosophy, Political Economy or Sociology Prohibitions: HSTY2057 Assessment: Annotated bibliography (500wds) (15%) research paper proposal (1000wds) (25%) research paper (2500wds) (40%) group presentation (500wds) (10%) Class participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: University-wide
This unit explores the cultural history of and intersections between sexuality, race and rock music in the United States from Elvis to Beyonce. Influenced by black and working-class cultures, and with sexuality embedded in its form and practice, rock music challenged and transformed existing norms of family, sex and gender. Through subjects including bwomen of colour, glam rock, disco and hip hop, students will learn that rock music provided a realm for rebellion, freedom, community and profit and has transformed the United States..

3000 level units of study

GCST3604 Using Cultural Theory

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: (12 credit points at 2000 level Gender and Cultural Studies) or (12 credit points at 2000 level Digital Cultures) Assessment: 2x 750 Critical Exercise (50%), 1x3000 Essay or Take-home Exercise (40%), Tutorial participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Cultural Studies was widely discussed as one of the "New Humanities" in the 1990s, but a long history of debates about and theories of culture precede the discipline, and the processes of deciding what are the key texts and concepts of Cultural Studies is ongoing. This unit overviews foundational and emerging critical concepts and writers in the field. Students will also undertake reading and analysis exercises designed to help them come to grips with using "theory" in their own work.
GCST3630 Everyday Life: Theories and Practices

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Cultural Studies or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Gender Studies Prohibitions: GCST2613 Assessment: 1x1000wd close reading task (20%), 1x1500wd (equivalent) fieldwork presentation (40%), 1x2000wd case study essay (40%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Our knowledge of everyday life is often taken for granted and yet cultural studies has developed some fascinating approaches to critically and creatively exploring the ordinary and extraordinary details that make up everyday life. Through case studies of everyday practices, spaces and experiences (waste, fashion, dreaming, eating, shopping, 'selfies') the unit explores key thinkers of the everyday as well as a range of research and writing methods (observation, thick description, close reading) that have helped to illuminate everyday life.
GCST3631 Gender, Communities and Belonging

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Gender Studies or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Cultural Studies or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Diversity Studies Prohibitions: GCST2613 or GCST2611 Assessment: 1x1000wd critical close reading task (20%), 1x2000wd research project (40%), 1x1000wd Take-home exercise (30%) and Tutorial participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
In this unit students will apply advanced methods from gender and cultural studies to examine experiences of belonging and formations of community. Students will analyse how power produces and regulates communities, identities and belonging. They will question the assumption that community is based on the unity and similarity of citizens and their location in specific cultures and places, and critically examine alternatives such as difference, diaspora, and other forms of sociality. Students will evaluate different theories of community in local, national and international contexts, and in relation to feminism, democracy, cosmopolitanism and hospitality.
GCST3634 The Social Life of Policy

This unit of study is not available in 2019

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1 x 2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Gender and Cultural Studies or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Diversity Studies Prohibitions: GCST2632 Assessment: 10x 150 wd Reading synopses (25%), 1x 1500wd Close reading of a policy (25%), 1x 500wd equivalent draft final project presentation (10%), 1x 2500wd Final research project (40%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This unit explores the idea of public policy as a major cultural force which shapes the way we live, how we are socially categorised, how we act, who and what we can become. Students also learn how they might influence public policy and of alternatives to policy for enacting social change.
GCST3636 Sex, Violence and Transgression

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Gender Studies or Cultural Studies Prohibitions: GCST2604 Assessment: 1x 1000 Close Reading of Media Example (25%), 1x 1000 Close Reading of Formal Text (25%), 1x 2500 Case Study (40%), Participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Violence is one of the most prevalent themes in popular culture and public discourse today. It shapes our lives in all sorts of ways, both real and imagined. This unit examines the different ways we construct knowledge of violence and how representations of violence may be both compelling and confronting. It focuses on the interconnections between categories of sex and violence within culture.

Interdisciplinary project unit of study

GCST3999 Interdisciplinary Impact

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Cultural Studies Prohibitions: Interdisciplinary Impact in another major Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Interdisciplinarity is a key skill in fostering agility in life and work. This unit provides learning experiences that build students' skills, knowledge and understanding of the application of their disciplinary background to interdisciplinary contexts. In this unit, students will work in teams and develop interdisciplinarity skills through problem-based learning projects responding to 'real world problems'.
GCST3998 Industry and Community Project

Credit points: 6 Session: Intensive December,Intensive February,Intensive January,Intensive July,Semester 1,Semester 2 Prerequisites: Interdisciplinary Impact in any major Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This unit is designed for third year students to undertake a project that allows them to work with one of the University's industry and community partners. Students will work in teams on a real-world problem provided by the partner. This experience will allow students to apply their academic skills and disciplinary knowledge to a real-world issue in an authentic and meaningful way.

Honours

Honours in Cultural Studies requires 48 credit points from this table including:
(i) 6 credit points of 4000-level core Honours Seminar unit
(ii) 6 credit points of 4000-level selective Honours Seminar unit
(iii) 36 credit points of 4000-level core Honours Thesis units

Core Honours seminar units of study

GCST4200 Arguing the Point

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Assessment: 1x 1000 wds Thesis evaluation exercise (30%), 1x 2000 wds Short analysis paper (30%), 1x 3000 wds Long essay (40%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This core unit of study develops scholarly skills of research, writing and argumentation, via the close examination of diverse examples from research in Gender and Cultural Studies. It caters to students in the early stages of thesis conception and development, guiding them in the reflexive development their own research practices and writing skills.

Selective Honours seminar units of study

GCST4203 Gender in Cultural Theory

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
What is the relation between femininity, masculinity and culture? Does sexual difference affect our identity and, if so, how and in what circumstances? What are the connections between cultural and racial difference and sexual difference? Drawing on the work of major cultural theorists and feminist thinkers this unit examines various theoretical conceptualizations and popular representations of gender; the issue of embodiment; and how sex and race are articulated within gendered conceptual frames.
GCST4204 Modernist Cultural Studies

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x3hr seminar/week Assessment: 1x500wd equiv oral presentation (15%), 1x500wd written summary (15%), 1x5000wd final essay (7%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This unit examines modernism, modernity and postmodernism through a range of 20th century concepts, practices and movements, including the avant-garde; feminism; the 'everyday'; mass culture; cinema and visual technologies; ethnography and the invention of 'culture'; and the emergence of postcolonial thought. The unit will provide an important foundation for some of the key intellectual ideas in cultural studies.
GCST4205 Health, Pleasure and Consumption

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
GCST4206 Gender, Media and Consumer Societies

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Assessment: Seminar Participation (10%), 1x 500 Group discussion/presentation (15%), 1x 1500 Advertising analysis (25%), 1x 500 Research Essay Proposal (10%), 1x 3500 Research Essay (40%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This unit examines theories of consumption in regards to cultural and media products and practices, with a specific focus on gender. Drawing upon a wide range of feminist media and cultural theories, we will critically analyse different forms of belonging and identity that are created through these practices. We will also pay close attention to the critiques of globalisation and consumption, theories of the 'citizen consumer' and the realities of geo-political and economic inequalities that underpin many forms of consumption.
GCST4207 Cultural Policy

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Assessment: Participation (10%), 1x3500wd Research essay (50%), 1x500wd Essay plan (10%), 1x2000wd Policy Analysis (30%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This unit examines cultural policy across a range of sectors such as museums and heritage, the arts, media, and the 'cultural industries'. It will provide theoretical perspectives and practical insight into policy formation processes in Australia and internationally. The multiple actors and rationales that shape policy and ground claims for its relevance amid social change and cultural diversity are considered. Students learn how to analyse policies in relation to the institutional, social and political contexts of their emergence.
GCST4208 Debates in Cultural Studies

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Assessment: Participation (10%), 1x3500wd Essay (50%), 1x2000wd Essay (30%), 1x500wd Seminar presentation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Cultural studies involves the study of texts and practices that constitute the ways that people live. In this unit, students explore and analyse the concepts and debates that recur in this field, such as representation, cultural relativism, subjectivity, agency, identity, difference, and everyday life. Students will focus on how arguments about culture can be developed in line with these and other concepts, through various forms of evidence and methods of analysis of culture.
GCST4209 Key Thinkers in Cultural Studies

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Assessment: 1x3500wd Essay (50%), 4x500wd Journal (40%), 1x500wd Seminar presentation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Based on a close reading of individual authors, this unit introduces students without in-depth background in cultural theory to key thinkers for contemporary cultural studies. Students will learn how theoretical fields as Western Marxism, psychoanalysis, critical race theory, feminism, queer theory, science studies, and environmental thinking have shaped the development of cultural studies. They will also develop skills for relating cultural research to the cross-disciplinary traditions of structuralism and poststructuralism as these have been taken up in different intellectual contexts around the world.

Honours thesis units of study

GCST4201 Cultural Studies Thesis 1

Credit points: 12 Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 7 x half-hour supervision meetings/semester, on average Mode of delivery: Supervision Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Research towards and preliminary writing of an Honours thesis of 18-20,000 words, in collaboration with the supervisor, approved by the Honours coordinator.
GCST4202 Cultural Studies Thesis 2

Credit points: 24 Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 7 x half-hour supervision meetings/semester, on average Assessment: 1x 18000-20000 wds Thesis (100%) Mode of delivery: Supervision Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Completion and submission of an Honours thesis of 18-20,000 words, in collaboration with the supervisor, approved by the Honours coordinator.

Advanced Coursework

The requirements for advanced coursework in Cultural Studies are described in the degree resolutions for the Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Advanced Studies. 24-36 credit points of advanced study will be included in the table for 2020.