Spanish and Latin American Studies

This subject provides students with the necessary language and intercultural skills to communicate in everyday situations in Spanish through project-based and object-based assessment tasks and in-class activities. Students work together to curate an online exhibition, engaging with authentic cultural materials, such as visual artworks, to develop their reading, listening and speaking skills, as well as their digital literacy. Students are afforded a taste of the richness of the Hispanic World while developing workplace skills such as problem-solving, team work, clear communication, curation, information literacy and professionalism. Students are introduced to the grammatical structures and vocabulary that allow them to converse in a number of informal situations, and which will connect them to the societies and cultures of the global Spanish-speaking community. Students develop writing strategies that enable them to produce a number of descriptive, personal texts, such as emails, letters and family profiles. They are encouraged to develop personal awareness and an understanding of diverse cultural identities that make up the Hispanic world.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers students the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

In this subject, students continue to be exposed to the diversity of the Hispanic World through project work and speakers from the community, and to critically reflect on their own awareness and understanding of the cultural identities of the Hispanic World. Students also learn to converse in a variety of situations that progressively become less personal and more related to the world around them. Spanish 2 equips students with more sophisticated language and intercultural skills to engage with authentic materials such as songs, film, social media and short written texts designed to develop an appreciation of the wide range of identities that make up the Hispanic World. Students work on a project involving an interview with a member of the Hispanic community, which fosters both their intercultural skills and their reading, listening, writing and speaking skills. Writing strategies such as editing, summarizing and persuasive techniques prepare students to produce a number of texts including summaries, essays, biographies and blog entries using present and past tenses to describe personal experiences. Important cultural information about food, travel, migration, festivals, personal relationships and working life in the Hispanic World will support students in communicating appropriately. Students also develop their digital literacy as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, team work, clear communication, interviewing, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers students the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject enhances students’ language and intercultural skills in Spanish. On its successful completion, students will be equipped to describe emotions, places and people in a variety of ways. They will be able to communicate about the self and others through reading and writing personal stories and short critical texts based on researched academic sources. Watching authentic Spanish and Latin American short films and news as well as reading essays, short literary texts and newspapers from different Spanish-speaking countries will provide students with some in-depth knowledge about culturally and politically significant topics in the Spanish-speaking world and Hispanic cultures. They will become confident conversing in everyday informal and some formal situations, and they will showcase their communicative skills in an audio-visual group project producing a short video together. By the end of the semester, students will be able to use a variety of structures and vocabulary in the Spanish language including present and past tenses. Additionally, students will enhance their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, self-evaluation, information literacy and professionalism.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject equips students with increasingly sophisticated language and intercultural skills to communicate about the self and other in Spanish in a wider range of social contexts. On its successful completion, students will be able to comprehend and produce a variety of stories and critical texts that are both informed by and cite academic research sources. They will have the language skills necessary to comprehensively describe emotions, places and people and to use language appropriate to everyday informal situations, as well as a growing number of formal situations. Reading authentic texts from newspapers, online sources such as blogs and social media, as well as shorter literary texts, and watching a number of award-winning short films from different Spanish-speaking countries, students will advance their in-depth knowledge in some areas of contemporary life in the Hispanic world. They will also learn to give their opinion, participate in debates, evaluate and report on ideas in the Spanish language, as well as showcase their growing communicative confidence in an audio-visual group project. Additionally, students will enhance their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, self-evaluation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject, taught intensively during the summer period, combines two subjects enhancing students’ language and intercultural skills in Spanish. The subject equips students with increasingly sophisticated language and intercultural skills to communicate about the self and other in Spanish in a wider range of social contexts. On its successful completion, students will be able to comprehend and produce a variety of personal stories and critical texts informed by and citing academic research sources. They will have the language skills necessary to describe comprehensively describe emotions, places and people and to use language appropriate to everyday informal situations, as well as a growing number of formal situations. Reading authentic texts from newspapers, online sources such as blogs and social media, as well as shorter literary texts, and watching a number of award-winning short films from different Spanish-speaking countries, students will advance their in-depth knowledge in some areas of contemporary life in the Hispanic world.

They will also learn to give their opinion, participate in debates, evaluate and report on ideas in the Spanish language, as well as demonstrate their growing communicative confidence in an audio-visual group project. Additionally, students will enhance their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, self-evaluation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

In this subject, students will continue to develop their linguistic and cultural competence in Spanish. They will also advance and reflect on their skills in textual analysis, with a special focus on the long tradition of testimonial texts (testimonios) in recent Spanish and Latin American history. Through the study of first-person narratives and authentic Spanish and Latin American short films, news and shorter literary texts, students will learn how to create and use authentic Spanish and Latin American cultural materials across a variety of media based on academic research. This will allow them to produce their own first-person testimonies and critical arguments in the shape of both formal (project presentation, essay writing) and informal contexts (personal blogs, podcasts, videos, etc.). Students will thus gain an appreciation of, and an ability to express their own ideas about the cultural and historical realities that have shaped the Spanish and Latin American modern and contemporary world and recognise idiosyncratic differences within the Spanish-speaking communities.

They will become confident in and reflect on their use of vocabulary, sentence and text structures utilised in different contexts (formal and informal) and as presented in different newspaper genres, diaries, short and long narrative texts, and audio-visual expressions of the self and the other. In addition, students will enhance their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, project presentation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

The focus of this subject will be on the development of the students as confident bicultural and bilingual speakers of the Spanish language, creating short fictional texts and films at a sophisticated level of oral and written language competence. Analysing a variety of oral and written fictional narratives, with an emphasis on authentic Spanish and Latin American short stories and short films, students will identify the diversity they represent and the distinct intellectual and creative contribution of Hispanic fiction to the world based on academic research. This will allow students not only to understand the textual and cinematic structure of different genres, but also to create and reflect on their own narratives in formal (project presentation, script development) and informal contexts (discussion, short film, short story, etc.).

Students will gain an appreciation of the cultural and historical realities that have shaped artistic expression in the Spanish and Latin American modern and contemporary worlds, recognise idiosyncratic differences within the Spanish-speaking communities and add their own intercultural contribution. They will research, reflect on, and become proficient in using complex sentence structures and verb forms and confident in communicating their own literary ideas in a range of media and fictional genres drawing on a wide variety of vocabulary, oral expressions and textual analysis skills. In addition, students will further cultivate their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, project presentation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject gives students majoring in Spanish and Latin American Studies the opportunity to reflect on their language/culture achievements and to engage in a guided learning program which uses Spanish-language cinema as a vehicle for in-depth cultural and linguistic understanding. Cinema is one of the most important forms of cultural expression in the Spanish and Latin American World, and is used to tell complex social, political, cultural, economic and personal stories. This subject will inspire students to reflect on their language/culture learning experience while completing their major and revisit the film and culture components present in all core and elective Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects.

During the semester, students are guided in the holistic study of a representative film or group of films from the Spanish-speaking world. This study entails exploring major and emerging Spanish-language cinemas from a variety of aesthetic and industrial perspectives; understanding the culture-society nexus; identifying local varieties of spoken Spanish; and evaluating the transnational value of specific national cinemas. This is a project-based subject, and the assessment is codesigned by students, in that they are able to identify their preferred areas of study and avenues of exploration at the beginning of the semester. The major assessment task involves a professional level presentation based on the group project. Students will have the opportunity to show their work at the Latin American Film Festival.

This subject is the Capstone subject in the Spanish and Latin American Studies major.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject enhances students’ language and intercultural skills in Spanish. On its successful completion, students will be equipped to describe emotions, places and people in a variety of ways. They will be able to communicate about the self and others through reading and writing personal stories and short critical texts. Watching authentic Spanish and Latin American short films and news as well as reading essays, short literary texts and newspapers from different Spanish-speaking countries will provide students with some in-depth knowledge about culturally and politically significant topics in the Spanish-speaking world and Hispanic cultures. They will become confident conversing in everyday informal and some formal situations, and they will showcase their communicative skills in an audio-visual group project producing a short video together. By the end of the semester, students will be able to use a variety of structures and vocabulary in the Spanish language including present and past tenses. Additionally, students will enhance their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, self-evaluation, information literacy and professionalism.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject equips students with increasingly sophisticated language and intercultural skills to communicate about the self and other in Spanish in a wider range of social contexts. On its successful completion, students will be able to comprehend and produce a variety of personal stories and critical texts. They will have the language skills necessary to comprehensively describe emotions, places and people and to use language appropriate to everyday informal and a growing number of formal situations. Reading authentic texts from newspapers, online sources such as blogs and social media, as well as shorter literary texts, and watching a number of award-winning short films from different Spanish-speaking countries, students will advance their in-depth knowledge in some areas of contemporary life in the Hispanic world. They will also learn to give their opinion, participate in debates, evaluate and report on ideas in the Spanish language, as well as showcase their growing communicative confidence in an audio-visual group project. Additionally, students will enhance their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, self-evaluation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

In this subject, students will continue to develop their linguistic and cultural competence in Spanish. They will also advance and reflect on their skills in textual analysis, with a special focus on the long tradition of testimonial texts (testimonios) in recent Spanish and Latin American history. Through the study of first-person narratives and authentic Spanish and Latin American short films, news and shorter literary texts, students will learn how to create and use authentic Spanish and Latin American cultural materials across a variety of media based on academic research. This will allow them to produce their own first-person testimonies and critical arguments in the shape of both formal (project presentation, essay writing) and informal contexts (personal blogs, podcasts, videos, etc.). Students will thus gain an appreciation of, and an ability to express their own ideas about the cultural and historical realities that have shaped the Spanish and Latin American modern and contemporary world and recognise idiosyncratic differences within the Spanish-speaking communities. They will become confident in the use of vocabulary, sentence and text structures utilised in different contexts (formal and informal) and as presented in different newspaper genres, diaries, short and long narrative texts, and audio-visual expressions of the self and the other. In addition, students will enhance their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, project presentation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

The focus of this subject will be on the development of the students as confident bicultural and bilingual speakers of the Spanish language, creating short fictional texts and films at a sophisticated level of oral and written language competence. Analysing a variety of oral and written fictional narratives, with an emphasis on authentic Spanish and Latin American short stories and short films, students will identify the diversity they represent and the distinct intellectual and creative contribution of Hispanic fiction to the world based on academic research. This will allow students not only to understand the textual and cinematic structure of different genres, but also to create and reflect on their own narratives in formal (project presentation, script development) and informal contexts (discussion, short film, short story, etc.).

Students will gain an appreciation of the cultural and historical realities that have shaped artistic expression in the Spanish and Latin American modern and contemporary worlds, recognise idiosyncratic differences within the Spanish-speaking communities and add their own intercultural contribution. They will become proficient in using complex sentence structures and verb forms and confident in communicating their own literary ideas in a range of media and fictional genres drawing on a wide variety of vocabulary, oral expressions and textual analysis skills. In addition, students will further cultivate their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, project presentation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject is aimed at enabling students to substantially advance in their learning of Spanish language and Hispanic cultures, while also providing them with opportunities to develop workplace skills. In this subject, students will analyse sophisticated canonical and non-canonical texts that emerged from the major Spanish and Latin American literary movements. Advanced knowledge of the Spanish language will be promoted by studying, analysing and understanding texts such as short stories, theatre, poetry and essays. Students will study advanced Spanish language structures, such as complex verbal forms (e.g. subjunctive mode) and complex sentence structures, through textual analysis, essay writing, oral presentation and in-class discussion. Academic skills are enhanced through learning how to write scholarly essays in Spanish and to do close readings in a variety of genres, while oral skills are improved through individual and group presentations.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject gives students majoring in Spanish and Latin American Studies the opportunity to reflect on their language/culture achievements and to engage in a guided learning program which uses Spanish-language cinema as a vehicle for in-depth cultural and linguistic understanding. Cinema is one of the most important forms of cultural expression in the Spanish and Latin American World, and is used to tell complex social, political, cultural, economic and personal stories. This subject will inspire students to reflect on their language/culture learning experience while completing their major and revisit the film and culture components present in all core and elective Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects.

During the semester, students are guided in the holistic study of a representative film or group of films from the Spanish-speaking world. This study entails exploring major and emerging Spanish-language cinemas from a variety of aesthetic and industrial perspectives; understanding the culture-society nexus; identifying local varieties of spoken Spanish; and evaluating the transnational value of specific national cinemas. This is a project-based subject, and the assessment is codesigned by students, in that they are able to identify their preferred areas of study and avenues of exploration at the beginning of the semester. The major assessment task involves a professional level presentation based on the group project. Students will have the opportunity to show their work at the Latin American Film Festival.

This subject is the Capstone subject in the Spanish and Latin American Studies major.

View detailed information in the Handbook

In this subject, students will continue to develop their linguistic and cultural competence in Spanish. They will also advance their skills in textual analysis, with a special focus on the long tradition of testimonial texts (testimonios) in recent Spanish and Latin American history. Through the study of first-person narratives and authentic Spanish and Latin American short films, news and shorter literary texts, students will learn how to create and use authentic Spanish and Latin American cultural materials across a variety of media. This will allow them to produce their own first-person testimonies and critical arguments in the shape of both formal (project presentation, essay writing) and informal contexts (personal blogs, podcasts, videos, etc.). Students will thus gain an appreciation of, and an ability to express their own ideas about the cultural and historical realities that have shaped the Spanish and Latin American modern and contemporary world. They will become confident in the use of vocabulary, sentence and text structures utilised in different contexts (formal and informal) and as presented in different newspaper genres, diaries, short and long narrative texts, and audio-visual expressions of the self and the other. In addition, students will enhance their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, project presentation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

The focus of this subject will be on the development of the students as confident bicultural and bilingual speakers of the Spanish language, creating short fictional texts and films at a sophisticated level of oral and written language competence. Analysing a variety of oral and written fictional narratives, with an emphasis on authentic Spanish and Latin American short stories and short films, students will identify the diversity they represent and the distinct intellectual and creative contribution of Hispanic fiction to the world. This will allow students not only to understand the textual and cinematic structure of different genres, but also to create their own narratives in formal (project presentation, script development) and informal contexts (discussion, short film, short story, etc.). Students will gain an appreciation of the cultural and historical realities that have shaped artistic expression in the Spanish and Latin American modern and contemporary worlds and add their own intercultural contribution. They will become proficient in using complex sentence structures and verb forms and confident in communicating their own literary ideas in a range of media and fictional genres drawing on a wide variety of vocabulary, oral expressions and textual analysis skills. In addition, students will further cultivate their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, project presentation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject is aimed at enabling students to substantially advance in their learning of Spanish language and Hispanic cultures, while also providing them with opportunities to develop workplace skills. In this subject, students will analyse sophisticated canonical and non-canonical texts that emerged from the major Spanish and Latin American literary movements. Advanced knowledge of the Spanish language will be promoted by studying, analysing and understanding texts such as short stories, theatre, poetry and essays. Students will study advanced Spanish language structures, such as complex verbal forms (e.g. subjunctive mode) and complex sentence structures, through textual analysis, essay writing, oral presentation and in-class discussion. Academic skills are enhanced through learning how to write scholarly essays in Spanish and to do close readings in a variety of genres, while oral skills are improved through individual and group presentations.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject gives students majoring in Spanish and Latin American Studies the opportunity to reflect on their language/culture achievements and to engage in a guided learning program which uses Spanish-language cinema as a vehicle for in-depth cultural and linguistic understanding. Cinema is one of the most important forms of cultural expression in the Spanish and Latin American World, and is used to tell complex social, political, cultural, economic and personal stories. This subject will inspire students to reflect on their language/culture learning experience while completing their major and revisit the film and culture components present in all core and elective Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects.

During the semester, students are guided in the holistic study of a representative film or group of films from the Spanish-speaking world. This study entails exploring major and emerging Spanish-language cinemas from a variety of aesthetic and industrial perspectives; understanding the culture-society nexus; identifying local varieties of spoken Spanish; and evaluating the transnational value of specific national cinemas. This is a project-based subject, and the assessment is codesigned by students, in that they are able to identify their preferred areas of study and avenues of exploration at the beginning of the semester. The major assessment task involves a professional level presentation based on the group project. Students will have the opportunity to show their work at the Latin American Film Festival.

This subject is the Capstone subject in the Spanish and Latin American Studies major.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject allows students to fine tune their language skills by engaging with the heterogenous and diverse cultures, events, ideas, and experiences of the Spanish-Speaking world. Designed as a primer for students interested in learning more about the histories and cultures of Spain and Latin America, students will sharpen their skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing and research through an integrative learning experience that involves using the Spanish language to critically examine key cultural texts from the Hispanic world.

Cultural texts studied may include films, literature, art works, propaganda and/or archived ephemera, which act as catalysts for discussion, critical thinking and insight. Texts analysed and discussed in this subject relate to issues and events of historical and political significance, while touching on shared cultural themes.

Through a close reading of Spanish-speaking cultural products of various kinds, students will develop an appreciation for the particular powers of each mode of representation. This subject also introduces students to basic research methods in Hispanic Cultural Studies, such as archival work, translation, and the selection and study of primary and secondary sources.

View detailed information in the Handbook

In this subject students co-create their own curriculum, following the "choose your own adventure" theme. In Latin America, cultural expression generally responds to specific socio-political contexts. This subject explores different forms of resistance, mainly in popular music. Through the analysis of protest songs, it studies dissident social movements and artistic reactions to socio-political events. Each of the forms of expression selected for this course are explored within the socio-cultural space/time from which they emerge, telling stories of pain, loss and defeat but also the complexity and endurance of the resistance. Despite the racial, geographical, national, genre and ideological differences, all these cultural expressions share the constant search for identity and freedom.

View detailed information in the Handbook

The dichotomy Civilisation vs Barbarism has been one of the guiding fictions of Argentinian cultural history since 1845, when Domingo Sarmiento’s Facundo: Civilisation and Barbarism was published. Written at a time of cultural crisis, this founding essay established a fundamental binary that would rule the rest of Argentina’s history until today. The students will analyse the opposing sides and examine the peculiar dividing mentality created by the intellectuals of the country in the 19th century, which framed the first idea of Argentina. Its ideological legacy is in some sense a mythology of exclusion rather than a unifying national idea, a recipe for division rather than a consensus pluralism. Through a variety of readings and online activities, the subject invites you to explore, and contextualise globally, the realities and fictions that inhabit Argentina: a two-sided country, a place of contradictions.

The subject is delivered in Spanish language, online, during the winter break. In a flexible and interactive mode, students will have the opportunity to integrate a variety of communication tools and collaborate with peers in a versatile and innovative environment. Students will thus enhance their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, self-evaluation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

In this intensive four-week subject, “Chile: The Land at the End of the World”, we will travel to various locations in and around Santiago de Chile, each site selected for the unique story it tells about the political, social and/or cultural formation of the Chilean identity and experience. Students will gain specialised insight into Chile’s positioning as an actor within Latin American and global discourses and be led to reflect on Australia’s connections with this Southern Cone nation. Through a combination of course work; hands-on engagement with local social organisations; and cultural activities including musical, artisan and culinary events, students will be equipped with conceptual and practical tools for developing intercultural sensitivity and cultural humility in their interactions with other cultures and histories.

This subject is available to students as a breadth subject and is taught in Spanish.

View detailed information in the Handbook

Issues related to gender and sexuality are key to understand social and cultural practices in Spain and Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas. In this subject such issues are explored in relation to their representation in cultural texts – including fiction literature, film and TV. Major themes to be explored include gender violence, gay marriage legislation, gender reassignment legislation, post-colonial feminisms, new masculinities, and sexism in language.

View detailed information in the Handbook

In this subject students co-create their own curriculum, following the "choose your own adventure" theme. In Latin America, cultural expression generally responds to specific socio-political contexts. This course explores different forms of resistance, mainly in popular music. Through the analysis of protest songs, it studies dissident social movements and artistic reactions to socio-political events. Each of the forms of expression selected for this course are explored within the socio-cultural space/time from which they emerge, telling stories of pain, loss and defeat but also the complexity and endurance of the resistance. Despite the racial, geographical, national, genre and ideological differences, all these cultural expressions share the constant search for identity and freedom.

View detailed information in the Handbook

The dichotomy Civilisation vs Barbarism has been one of the guiding fictions of Argentinian cultural history since 1845, when Domingo Sarmiento’s Facundo: Civilisation and Barbarism was published. Written at a time of cultural crisis, this founding essay established a fundamental binary that would rule the rest of Argentina’s history until today. The students will analyse the opposing sides and examine the peculiar dividing mentality created by the intellectuals of the country in the 19th century, which framed the first idea of Argentina. Its ideological legacy is in some sense a mythology of exclusion rather than a unifying national idea, a recipe for division rather than a consensus pluralism. Through a variety of readings and online activities, the subject invites you to explore, and contextualise globally, the realities and fictions that inhabit Argentina: a two-sided country, a place of contradictions.

The subject is delivered in Spanish language, online, during the winter break. In a flexible and interactive mode, students will have the opportunity to integrate a variety of communication tools and collaborate with peers in a versatile and innovative environment. Students will thus enhance their digital literacy and practice skills as well as a number of skills relevant to a workplace environment, such as problem-solving, teamwork, clear communication, self-evaluation, information literacy and professionalism.

Part of the assessment of this subject will contribute to the ePortfolio students develop in their Spanish and Latin American Studies subjects. This digital platform offers the opportunity to showcase relevant workplace skills and digital and intercultural competencies in the target language, as well as individual interests and ideas.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject provides students with a comprehensive introduction to Latin American societies, economies, and politics. It offers an overview of the region’s history and cultures, and relates these to practical challenges and opportunities for global integration. The subject examines Latin American responses to globalisation and engagement with international institutions. Emphasis is placed on evolving relationships between Latin America and other players in the region, including China, through case studies of national development, economic growth, and cultural exchange. This subject is taught in English.

View detailed information in the Handbook

In this intensive four-week subject, “Chile: The Land at the End of the World”, we will travel to various locations in and around Santiago de Chile, each site selected for the unique story it tells about the political, social and/or cultural formation of the Chilean identity and experience. Students will gain specialised insight into Chile’s positioning as an actor within Latin American and global discourses and be led to reflect on Australia’s connections with this Southern Cone nation. Through a combination of course work; hands-on engagement with local social organisations; and cultural activities including musical, artisan and culinary events, students will be equipped with conceptual and practical tools for developing intercultural sensitivity and cultural humility in their interactions with other cultures and histories.

This subject is available to students as a breadth subject and is taught in Spanish.

View detailed information in the Handbook

Learning a language culminates not only in linguistic and cultural proficiency but also in the development of advanced skills in areas valued by industry: intercultural competence, communication and lateral thinking. This subject offers students the opportunity to recognise and extend these skills by engaging with an industry collaborator in target-language communities in Australia. Students will work in teams to develop solutions, either to progress an existing project or to initiate a project, in consultation with the industry partner and in line with the rigour of workplace knowledge and processes. The subject brings together students from a mix of language majors and is taught in English, but will result in assessable outcomes in a target language.

The subject comprises three phases: 1) three initial weeks of seminars (delivered in English to students in all language streams) which introduce students to team- and project-work strategies, workplace culture, career pathways, as well as the industry partner’s multi-dimensional real-world challenge ; 2) eight weeks of collaborative work in a target language in response to a project brief, under close supervision and to a schedule of reporting deadlines; and 3) the presentation of project outcomes in the target language to an audience of industry specialists, community members and peers.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject examines the relationship between language and society in Europe. It focuses on issues of relevance in an increasingly integrated Europe in which European and other languages are in contact through migration, travel, business, and mass media, and in which English is taking on an important role as a lingua franca. The topics to be covered include: the relationship between majority and minority languages, dialects and the standard language, bilingualism and multilingualism, semi-communication, language planning at state and European levels, politeness and forms of address, and the status and influence of English.

View detailed information in the Handbook

The eye-witness account and the personal memoir offer powerful ways of exploring the human legacy of overwhelming historical events on individual lives. But how do literary genres like the memoir and autobiography manage to speak about unspeakable topics, how do they represent the unrepresentable and write about trauma? What is the function, and what is the effect, of writing memory for the victim, for the reader, and for the perpetrator? What is the relationship between fiction and memory in memoir writing and how do we read a testimonial of a Holocaust survivor that has been faked? In this subject, students will engage in these questions through a close reading of individual stories of a shameful national past. Students will explore the effect of generic convention on the relation of history and memory, and the need for generic invention to speak trauma and tell the un-tellable. Focusing on writings and film from different European contexts, students will apply critical reflection and interpretation skills to examine the history of the 20th century through individual memory.

View detailed information in the Handbook

A team-taught study of European cinema during a period of intense political and social change. Students who complete this subject should be familiar with some of the major developments in cinematic representation in Europe from the early 20th century to the present. They should be able to relate the films studied to their national and European cultural and historical context.

Note: This subject is taught in English.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject explores portrayals and perceptions of perceived “Others” in Europe – such as Jews, Muslims, “gypsies” and refugees - and how they have contributed to European identities in the past and today. Looking at literature, film, philosophy, music, food and popular culture, the subject will seek to understand how Europe’s Others are essential to the formation and maintenance of national, ethnic and religious identities in many European countries. It will examine the role of Others “within” (such as the Jews) and Others “without” (such as colonial subjects) and consider kinds of European “Othering” that position the Other as either appealing and attractive or threatening and repulsive. From colonial-era exoticisation to present day xenophobia, European views of the Other have been central to definitions of the self and shaped the continent’s history, politics, culture and languages. Students will gain an appreciation of nation and national identity in Europe as a discursive and comparative process, and an understanding of the distinct national stories of a number of European countries.

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Queering Europe investigates the social and linguistic contexts, cultural production, and representation of LGBTIQA+ communities in Europe. A key objective of the subject is to explore the diverse ways in which queer and trans issues are brought to light in European culture. The subject familiarises students with contemporary LGBTIQA+ debates and Europe’s long queer history through a range of case studies. The subject engages students with cultural activism by LGBTIQA+ writers, film makers and artists and the ways in which they provoked readers/viewers in and outside their communities through new and complex cultural expressions.

By exploring representations of queer and trans desire, sexuality, and gender diversity through European history, the subject showcases how the arts have given LGBTIQA+ communities an imaginary site of resistance and exchange.

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This subject examines the relationship between language and society in Europe. It focuses on issues of relevance in an increasingly integrated Europe in which European and other languages are in contact through migration, travel, business, and mass media, and in which English is taking on an important role as a lingua franca. The topics to be covered include: the relationship between majority and minority languages, dialects and the standard language, bilingualism and multilingualism, semi-communication, language planning at state and European levels, politeness and forms of address, and the status and influence of English.

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The eye-witness account and the personal memoir offer powerful ways of exploring the human legacy of overwhelming historical events on individual lives. But how do literary genres like the memoir and autobiography manage to speak about unspeakable topics, how do they represent the unrepresentable and write about trauma? What is the function, and what is the effect, of writing memory for the victim, for the reader, and for the perpetrator? What is the relationship between fiction and memory in memoir writing and how do we read a testimonial of a Holocaust survivor that has been faked? In this subject, students will engage in these questions through a close reading of individual stories of a shameful national past. Students will explore the effect of generic convention on the relation of history and memory, and the need for generic invention to speak trauma and tell the un-tellable. Focusing on writings and film from different European contexts, students will apply critical reflection and interpretation skills to examine the history of the 20th century through individual memory.

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A team-taught study of European cinema during a period of intense political and social change. Students who complete this subject should be familiar with some of the major developments in cinematic representation in Europe from the early 20th century to the present. They should be able to relate the films studied to their national and European cultural and historical context.

Note: This subject is taught in English.

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This subject explores portrayals and perceptions of perceived “Others” in Europe – such as Jews, Muslims, “gypsies” and refugees - and how they have contributed to European identities in the past and today. Looking at literature, film, philosophy, music, food and popular culture, the subject will seek to understand how Europe’s Others are essential to the formation and maintenance of national, ethnic and religious identities in many European countries. It will examine the role of Others “within” (such as the Jews) and Others “without” (such as colonial subjects) and consider kinds of European “Othering” that position the Other as either appealing and attractive or threatening and repulsive. From colonial-era exoticisation to present day xenophobia, European views of the Other have been central to definitions of the self and shaped the continent’s history, politics, culture and languages. Students will gain an appreciation of nation and national identity in Europe as a discursive and comparative process, and an understanding of the distinct national stories of a number of European countries.

View detailed information in the Handbook

In this course students learn about a selection of European cuisines and how they have been plated up for consumption in Melbourne. Food and wine are often used to support national and regional identity. In the first part of this course, students will consider the relationship between gastronomy and identity. Students will be introduced to a range of key culinary concepts and practices and the way we talk about them. Through analysis of some of the key features of French, Italian and Spanish cuisines, students will consider how these countries’ culinary profiles speak to wider socio-political issues such as authenticity, food and space, cultural practices and the history of food and wine.

In the second part of this course, students will consider issues of “authenticity” in the way cuisines are plated up for consumption in Melbourne. This will require students to interrogate their assumptions and expectations about European foods and wines and to reflect on their personal experience of the “taste” of Europe.

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Queering Europe investigates the social and linguistic contexts, cultural production, and representation of LGBTIQA+ communities in Europe. A key objective of the subject is to explore the diverse ways in which queer and trans issues are brought to light in European culture. The subject familiarises students with contemporary LGBTIQA+ debates and Europe’s long queer history through a range of case studies. The subject engages students with cultural activism by LGBTIQA+ writers, film makers and artists and the ways in which they provoked readers/viewers in and outside their communities through new and complex cultural expressions.

By exploring representations of queer and trans desire, sexuality, and gender diversity through European history, the subject showcases how the arts have given LGBTIQA+ communities an imaginary site of resistance and exchange.

View detailed information in the Handbook

Translation is not a simple language replacement exercise; it is one of the main ways in which cultures shape political thought, literature, and science. This subject will offer answers to basic questions about how this happens. What are the main solutions available to translators? What goes on in the translating brain? How can technologies help translators? How does translation change in accordance with different languages and text genres? Students will also gain hands-on experience with the practical skills of post-editing, translation memories and subtitling.

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