131-077 City & the Bush: Australian Identities

Usually 25 points of first-year history, see Prerequisites.

Most Australians live in cities, yet Australian national identity has always been grounded in the countryside. This subject explores the social and cultural reasons for this paradox. Australians know little about the history of their cities, and their understanding of rural Australia is conditioned by legends rather than by the actualities of life on the land. European settlement and prosperity in Australia were built upon a reciprocal relationship between city and the bush, but probably at no other time has that relationship been so misunderstood as it is today. The rift between city and country is wider now than at any time since significant European rural settlement began during the 1820s. Moreover the environmental and social costs of that relationship which include the dismantling of Aboriginal society, and the creation of structural inequalities of race, gender, and social class in both urban and rural Australia have been obscured by homogenising myths about the Aussie battler and the fair go. This subject provides a comprehensive comparative social history of urban and regional Australia. It offers students the opportunity to undertake detailed local studies, and to study literature, art, mass media, and material culture.

Class participation and written work totalling 4000 words.

A subject reader will be available.