Subject Area: Australian Studies

As the Gateway course for Australian Studies, 'Australian Legends' introduces students to important components of Australian self-understanding in their evolving cultural contexts. It investigates the origins and shifting meanings of images such as the Fatal Shore, the Bush Legend, the Quiet Continent, White Australia, the Anzac Legend, the Land of the Fair Go, Secular Sporting Paradise, Man's World. It examines how a wide variety of writers, artists, feminists, historians, radical nationalists and Indigenous activists have contributed to the making of these images as well as challenged them. The course addresses fundamental questions implicit in the field of Australian Studies itself: what is Australian Studies? What do scholars in this field do? What led to its development?