Australian History: Aboriginal History to Colonization

Using contemporary issues in Australia - race, immigration, gender, politics, foreign policy and the environment - the course explains the historical origins of issues and provides critical analysis. This course begins in the current year and looks back into Australia's past, asking and answering a series of questions to explain contemporary attitudes and events as part of an ongoing dialogue between the present and the past.

Among the questions are: What aspects of our colonial history help explain Australia in the twenty-first century? What is black armband history? Why do Indigenous Australians remain a disadvantaged group in society? What is the history of class, race and ethnicity in Australian society? Why have refugees become such an important issue? Why is gender parity and sexual liberation important? What is the place of nationalism in Australia? To what extent can today's environmental problems be traced to past attitudes and management decisions?