Macquarie University

Unassimilable Bodies: UnAustralian Cultural Studies - CUL321

This unit is designed to introduce students to a cluster of issues, situated in a contemporary Australian context, that are inscribed with various levels of cultural and political contestation; specifically, in this unit we discuss a range of embodied subjects that stand in a relation of crisis and/or dissent in the context of dominant Australian culture. We examine: the cultural panics generated by the ethnic descriptor of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’; the cultural politics of terrorism and state violence; the power of whiteness; the racialisation of criminality and the prison industry; queer ethnic bodies and intercultural desire; histories of political internment; Indigenous life writing and the cultural politics of counter-histories; ethnic kitsch and the cultural politics of architecture; and Australia's treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. These topics are examined in the context of film, documentaries and literary culture.

Timetable Information

For unit timetable information please visit the Timetables@Macquarie Website