106-413 Reading Suburbia in Post-War Australia

Formerly available as 106-066. Students who have completed 106-066 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

Usually admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth year honours in English, see Honours entry.

This subject will explore post-war Australian literature and cultural criticism as a means to unravelling the conflicting political and aesthetic claims made on or against suburbia. The subject will suggest that debates about suburbia are also debates about modernity more generally conceived, and as such, impact upon our understanding of issues like colonisation, multiculturalism, consumerism, the feminisation of domestic space, urban planning and the relationship between private and public spheres. Students will also encounter a series of theoretical writings which introduce the concepts necessary to discuss the relationship between cultural material and a broader notion of modernity. As a result, on completion of the subject, students should be familiar with literary texts and critical writing implicated in debates about the interpretation of suburbia in Australian life, and have developed analytical techniques that will enable them to negotiate cultural products, everyday experience and theoretical paradigms.

• be able to apply research skills and critical methods to a field of inquiry;

• develop persuasive arguments on a given topic;

• communicate oral and written arguments and ideas effectively and articulately.

An essay of 5000 words for 4th year students or 6000 words for masters students 100 (due at the end of the semester).

A subject reader will be available from the University Bookshop.

• G Johnson, My Brother Jack.
• C Stead, The Man who Loved Children.
• P White, Riders in the Chariot.