Imagining Australia

This subject asks how Australia has come to be understood as it is through the way it was imagined as an Indigenous creation and homeland, as a site of British colonisation and as a modern multicultural nation. These sometimes conflicting and sometimes complementary ideas will be explored through cultural productions including literature, film and the visual arts. The temporal and spatial assumptions about Australia will be examined through the idea that Australia is both an imagined and material entity. How it is represented  and understood by its diverse populations will be analysed using theories of time, space, Indigenous sovereignty and subjectivity. Students will be encouraged to create new and relevant imaginings of ‘Australia’ from their various locations.