Who we are and what we do is all tangled up in our identity. This subject considers how identities are constructed and maintained through mediated processes of self and other. The subject investigates the myriad demands and devices that figure in constructing our senses of self and other (including language, leisure, beliefs and embodied practices). By exploring identity in diverse contexts, across time and place, the subject maps varying conceptions of self and other and how these conceptions are constructed and maintained. A key focus is on how these mediated conceptions of self and other are translated into material practices of inclusion, exclusion, discrimination, violence and criminalisation.

Language plays a central role in the central disciplinary areas in the humanities and social sciences. This subject gives students tools for thinking about language in a range of disciplines, including linguistics, history, sociology, politics, literary studies, anthropology, language studies, psychology and psychoanalytic theory. It shows how language can be analysed as a system, but also how language features centrally in politcal and social contexts: for example, in the processing of the claims of asylum seekers, in developing views of ethnicity, race and nation, and in colonialism; and in the construction of gendered and sexual identity. The role of language in the psyche, and the process of acquisition of languages in children and in adults, are also important topics. Knowing how to think about language, and familiarity with the main thinkers who have discussed language in a range of humanities and social science disciplines, provide an indispensable basis for study in any area of the Arts degree.

The idea of power is a way to grasp the character of social relations. Investigating power can tell us about who is in control and who may benefit from such arrangements. Power can be a zero-sum game of domination. It can also be about people acting together to enact freedom. This subject examines the diverse and subtle ways power may be exercised. It considers how power operates in different domains such as markets, political systems and other social contexts. It also examines how power may be moderated by such things as regulation and human rights. A key aim is to explore how differing perspectives portray power relations and how issues of power distribution may be characterised and addressed.

Reason, many believe, is what makes us human. Until recently, most scientists and philosophers agreed that the ability to use the mind to analyse and interpret the world is something intrinsic to the nature of our species. Reason has a long and extraordinary history. We will explore a number of inter-related themes: the nature of reason from Ancient Greece to our contemporary world; the ever shifting relationship between reason and faith; reason's place in the development of scientific experimentation and thinking; shifting perspectives about the uses of Reason and, finally, how reason relates to theories of the mind, exploring the tensions between reason, the passions and the will.

Reason will take you on a journey from Plato's cave to the neuro-scientists' lab. We will visit revolutions in science, thinking and politics. We will explore the impact of some of the great philosophers of history, including Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Bentham, Coleridge, Marx, Nietzsche, Foucault and many more besides. By the end of this subject you will have a deep understanding of the importance of the idea of reason to human history and philosophy. You might, even, be able to answer the question: 'does reason exist?'

Reason is an Arts Foundation Subject and we will argue that understanding the history and philosophy of reason provides great insights into many aspects of the humanities from political philosophy to understanding history. We will, of course, be paying particular attention to the foundational skills that will help you successfully complete your Arts major: particularly critical thinking and argument development.

This subject will provide students with an introduction to the complexity, challenges and richness of Australian Indigenous life and cultures. Drawing on a wide range of diverse and dynamic guest lecturers, this subject gives students an opportunity to encounter Australian Indigenous knowledges, histories and experiences through interdisciplinary perspectives. Across three thematic blocks - Indigenous Knowledges, Social and Political Contexts and Representation/Self-Representation - this subject engages contemporary cultural and intellectual debate. Social and political contexts will be considered through engagement with specific issues and a focus on Indigenous cultural forms, which may include literature, music, fine arts, museum exhibitions and performance, will allow students to consider self-representation as a means by which to disrupt and expand perceptions of Aboriginality.

Humans grapple with representations of themselves and their contexts. They also like to imagine other possible worlds. We use words, language, images, sounds and movement to construct narratives and stories, large and small, about the trivial and the profound, the past and the future. These representations can help us to understand worlds but they can also create worlds for us. This subject explores how different genres such as speech, writing, translation, film, theatre and art generate representations of social life, imagination and the human condition. A key aim of the subject is to develop a critical appreciation of how language, images and embodied gestures are used to construct empowering and disempowering discourses.

There are over 800 million people in the world who are chronically malnourished, and world hunger is rising. Yet the world already produces enough food to feed 1.5 times the global population. This subject explains the physical and social drivers of hunger, famines, and related crises in social-ecological systems. It proposes theories that explain famines and crises of scarcity, and tests these with evidence and case studies. In this way the subject introduces key issues, concepts, and theories central to geography, development, environmental studies and environmental science. The subject is interdisciplinary, providing students with a broad range of knowledge and analytical tools. Specifically, the subject draws together science and social science, introducing students to multiple disciplinary knowledge and practices.

This subject asks students to reflect on their position in the world through discussing the links between their own lives and those of young people in other global contexts. Students use personal reflection and selected scholarly readings, videos and media reports to investigate how youth are responding to global opportunities and threats in widely different settings, with specific reference to issues of education, work, and politics. Students also think about strategies for strengthening discussion of youth across geographical and social boundaries. The course is driven by student-centred learning activities and is centrally concerned with issues of diversity and inequality.

This subject aims to think critically and rigorously about the relationship between social and natural worlds. Its primary purpose is to question the idea that the environment exists outside of, and independent from, the realms of science, culture, politics and economy. Students will be introduced to different conceptual frameworks for understanding the environment as a social entity; to the processes by which capitalism and science structures social and environmental relations; and to alternative modes of living in, and thinking about, the environment. These broad themes will be addressed through engaging examples from Australia and beyond. Particular attention will be given to the concept of 'wilderness'; the postcolonial nature of the zoo; ecotourism; the politics of visualising nature (e.g. through wildlife documentary); the 'new natures' of genetic modification; and ideas about 'environmental justice' and ‘climate crisis’.

The subject focuses on the dynamic surface of our planet and the environments it sustains. The Earth’s surface is shaped by a complex interaction of physical and biological processes operating over a range of spatial and temporal scales. Understanding these processes in the present day, as well as reconstructing landscape and ecological change in the past, enables us to predict their future response to climate change and human activity. In this subject, students will study the processes and spatial patterns that shape natural landscapes and learn about approaches of reconstructing their evolution. Students will gain an appreciation of the ways that the dynamics of natural landscapes need to be incorporated into environmental management and the conservation of biodiversity.

This includes an in-depth understanding of the wide spectrum of landforms (including mountains and hillslopes, glaciers, rivers, dunes, and coasts) and the processes contributing to their formation and decay. In addition, the subject addresses the geographic patterns and dynamics of life on the Earth’s surface and investigates the way in which certain landscapes support particular types of ecosystems (such as rainforest, grassland, desert, estuarine and marine communities). Finally, the factors that may cause change in natural landscapes are explored to assess the roles played by climate, tectonics and humans over various timescales.

Through lectures, practicals and multiple days of field work, students will develop skills in a range of field and lab-based analytical techniques, as well as the use of GIS, for investigating our environment. This subject includes a four-day field trip in Victoria set to take place during the mid-semester break.

Students must submit 80% of the lab practical assignments and attend the field trip to be eligible to pass the subject.

This subject explores a range of contemporary environmental problems in Australia and internationally. It uses case studies to understand the following: the history and emergence of the issues; the key actors who engage with and manage these issues; and the political dynamics and strategies for governance. The subject examines the multiple dimensions (scientific, socio-cultural, economic, political) of environmental issues and the forms of knowledge and types of power that construct and mediate people’s relationships with the environment. Students should become familiar with the factors that lead to environmental conflicts and the mechanisms used to contain or resolve them, and be able to interpret them in the context of broader questions relating to environmental governance and sustainability.

This subject is about a changing China. The focus of the subject is the ongoing social, economic and political transformation and the impacts of the reforms on China’s people and environment. The subject covers three sets of topics: Urban geography and China (housing and land reforms, changing morphology from socialism to capitalism, urban enclavism and gated communities, migrant workers and urban villages); China’s economic development (Open door policy and geography of “Made in China”; Wenzhou Model, Pearl-River-Delta Model, state-owned enterprises, inequality, poverty alleviation and migration, rural development and governance); and China’s environment challenges (water management, environmental governance, and climate change).

This subject is about the changing geography of ‘Red Capitalist’ China. The focus of the subject is the ongoing social, economic and political transformation and the impacts of the reforms on China’s people and environment. The subject covers three sets of topics: China’s many faces (generation conflicts; ethnic minorities, rural China; physical landscapes and environment; Chinese women - “half sky”); China in transition (large is not beautiful, population policy and one-child only; China’s reform model; open door policy and geography of “Made in China”; population mobility and urbanisation; and spatial shifts of development focus); China’s major challenges (AIDS/HIV, geography of commercial sex industry; income polarisation; corruption and “Guanxi” with Chinese characteristics; “get rich quickly” and environmental cost; development and resource demand; and Three Gorges Dam resettlement).

Post-conflict nation states are entangled with a diverse range of historically contingent and differently understood forms of social, economic and environmental governance. This creates new challenges and very often new conflict. This subject draws on critical geographies of development to examine the significance of difference to post-conflict development processes in the Asia Pacific region, including East Timor, Cambodia and The Philippines. It asks how ideas of social and cultural difference are deployed and experienced by a range of actors, and explores how these ideas are (re)negotiated as a result of social and political change and power. This subject provides students with a variety of theoretical lenses with which to analyze post-conflict development and social and cultural difference in the region. Difference and its relationship to development in post-conflict settings will be investigated through case studies of ethnicity and race, population mobility, material culture, urban development, justice and accountability mechanisms, and livelihood, conservation and resource exploitation conflicts.

This subject examines differences in diverse people’s experiences of urban life, the opportunities and challenges it offers them, and their ability to shape the city. We will examine how social differences such as class, gender, ethnicity, race, and disability have been understood in urban studies from varied theoretical perspectives, including liberalism, Marxism, feminism and postcolonialism. We will explore these themes with case studies from many cities around the world, with a particular interest in Melbourne, where students will undertake independent field research. Specific issues to be investigated include: the social and cultural lives of rich, poor, middle-class and gentrifying neighbourhoods; the negotiation of gender roles and relations in the private and public spheres of the city; intergenerational conflicts in urban housing and labour markets; inequalities in the spatial distribution of urban infrastructures such as roads, transport, education and health services; racial segregation and conflict; the displacement and marginalization of Aboriginal communities in Australian cities, and their activism. Students completing the subject will demonstrate in-depth understanding of how social inequalities develop and manifest in cities; but also, how cities can become places of resistance, inter-cultural encounter and transformation.

Inequality is a global phenomenon – something widely found to be growing within and between nations. This subject takes a critical geographic perspective, focused on understanding the variety of scales at which inequality appears. It looks beneath national comparative statistics on global inequality to (1) investigate the ways in which inequality is generated and materially experienced in selected societies, social groups and places, and (2) analyse how new forms and conditions of inequality may be emerging with the advent of conditions termed the Anthropocene (an epoch in which environmental conditions on our planet are profoundly influenced by human action). The subject examines ideas of justice that propose ways of reducing inequality, in the light of processes generating a variety of inequalities at different scales, and for different social groups and places. Examples will be drawn from urban, regional, neighbourhood and national contexts in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Geography and health are intrinsically linked. This subject examines geographic approaches to the understanding of human health. Its primary purpose is to critically review the links between population health and place/location, including social, built and natural environments. Students will be introduced to different theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches for understanding geographies of health. The subject has particular focus on current health geography concerns including the spatial distribution of (re)emerging infectious diseases, population health impacts of climatic and environmental change, migrant health, neighbourhoods and health, and social and spatial distribution of health risks and vulnerabilities. These themes will be addressed through important case studies from both Australia and internationally.

The modern world is facing unprecedented anthropogenic environmental change. Understanding the dynamic interplay between humans and our environment is of paramount importance if we are to successfully navigate this period of major environmental upheaval. Climate and environmental change have played a key role in shaping the biological, cultural, and geographic evolution of our species. What can an understanding of the past teach us about dealing with environmental change in the future?

This subject investigates the interrelationship between humans and their natural environments through time using evidence from physical and human geography, archaeology, palaeoanthropology, palaeoclimatology and palaeoecology. We will take a deep-time perspective, journeying from the emergence of humankind 6 million years ago to the present day. We will draw on case studies from around the word and across many different time periods, exploring how changing environments have influenced important transitions including the first migration of humans out of Africa, the emergence of symbolic behaviour, the beginning of agriculture and animal domestication, and resilience and collapse of complex societies. We will explore questions such as: Did environmental complexity shape brain development? Why did all other Homo species go extinct while Homo sapiens became dominant? Did humans play a role in the extinction of megafauna? Was the emergence of agriculture and domestication linked to changing environments? Is there a correlation between environmental change and the collapse of complex societies? How have human subsistence strategies and resource use impacted vegetation, animal species, soils and climate? How will anthropogenic climate change affect the future of our species?

The subject will include a 2-day fieldtrip to the World Heritage-nominated Budj Bim National Park in Victoria to learn about the long-term and continuing relationship that the Gunditjmara people have with their natural environment, and the ways in which they have both driven and adapted to environmental change. The field trip will take place during mid-Semester break.

This subject serves as an introduction to demography: the scientific study of human populations. The subject provides an overview of concepts, theories, and methodological approaches for understanding the changing patterns and determinants of population size, composition, and spatial distribution. Students will learn how components of population change – fertility, mortality, and migration – are interlinked with broader forces of development and social change in a comparative geographic perspective. Case studies will be used to discuss the socio-political and economic implications of population change in both developed and less developed regions of the world. In doing so, the subject highlights contemporary debates and policy challenges around demographic bonus, population ageing, immigration, marriage and family change, fertility and reproductive health, gender and work, urbanisation, poverty and inequality, and population and environment. Although the subject is non-technical, students will be introduced to online resources and tools for basic analysis and visualisation techniques of population data.

There has been an explosion in the collection, and availability, of spatial information in the modern era. Locational data from smart phones, drones, and new generations of satellites, are examples of the growing opportunities that spatial data present for geography. Spatial analysis skills are now in high demand among many employers.

Understanding how to think about spatial data, and how to analyse those data, provides transformational skills. This subject equips students to map connections between nature and people, spatialise the impacts of climate change on humans and their environment, and use spatial data to inform decisions. Students will also gain an understanding of technical, ethical and analytical dimensions of spatial data. This subject teaches broad spatial skills and is equally useful for students of human, environmental, or physical geography.

While the subject develops competency with relevant software, the emphasis is on understanding key concepts regarding spatial data and how to formulate and answer spatial questions. The subject is structured around weekly, computer-based practicals which combine spatial skills with critical thinking. Half of the assessment comes from assignments in which students individually solve spatial data problems in geography.

Fire is one of the most important controls over the distribution of vegetation on Earth. This subject examines the role of fire in natural systems, with a particular emphasis on the importance of fire in determining global vegetation patterns and dynamics over long periods of time. The aim is to understand how terrestrial systems have evolved to cope with and exploit fire, and to place the extreme flammability Australia's vegetation within a global context. The subject will examine concepts such as resilience, positive feedback loops, hysteresis and alternative stable states. The use of fire by humans to manipulate environments will be examined, with a particular emphasis on the variety of approaches employed by people across a diversity of environments over long periods of time, allowing an exploration of the social and cultural dynamics of fire and environmental management. A field excursion in Tasmania will visit a number of sites which will exemplify the subject themes. The practical exercises leading up to the field trip will focus on how to gather fire-related ecological data. The practical exercises following the field trip will be devoted to processing, analysing, interpreting and reporting on the field data. At the end of the subject, students will have gained an understanding of the way in which fire has shaped natural systems, as well as acquiring the skills necessary to formulate and test hypotheses.

More information about the subject and field trip can be seen at: http://michaelsresearch.wordpress.com/GEOG30025/

The estimated additional cost of the 7 day field trip to Cradle Mountain, Tasmania, is in the vicinity of $750.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes.

This field class subject, combining on-campus classes with periodic off-campus field work in the Melbourne area, asks the question: in what ways are local sites globally connected? Sites selected for field study around Melbourne will vary year by year, as will the specific processes studied geographically at those sites. For example, study might be made of a selection of places and communities damaged by recent bushfire or flood, investigating how globally-sourced advice, personnel and equipment played a part in responding to those events, forging lasting links between those local places and the sources of their global assistance. Or, the global sources of contamination of local ocean sites might be studied. Or, the global worlds of social media might be mapped, by looking at a set of local social media users within particular urban populations. Or, the manner in which local environmental or urban policies may be drawn from overseas situations might be examined and critiqued, involving investigation of governance sites/settings in our local area and the ways they connect globally.

This is a field class subject, for which the field work will be conducted in Melbourne or its immediate environs. It is not an intensive subject.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory learning materials that are common across all field classes.

This subject consists of a two-week field trip to China in July with some pre-departure (in semester 1) and post-field trip workshop/seminars (in semester 2) in Melbourne. The subject is designed to develop students’ interests in Asia, in China in particular, and in the interactions between society, economy, government, and the environment. While in China, students will interact with local communities, academics and environmental managers who will inform them about issues and processes in China. This will be supplemented by site visits and household interviews. The field trip will be under the supervision of the subject coordinators. Students are responsible for the cost of airfares, accommodation and food.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes, and will be invited to a discussion session together at the end of their Capstone study and experience.

This subject consists of a 12-day field trip to East Timor in mid-year break with a series of compulsory pre-departure information sessions in semester 1 and a post-trip workshop in early Semester two. The subject is designed to develop students’ understanding of the Asia-Pacific region and in particular of the complex geographies of sm. all island and post-conflict states. Students will gain an in situ appreciation of the historical and contemporary issues relevant to East Timor and develop their empirical and analytical research skills while carrying out small group research into the impacts of conflict, climate and culture on social and economic development and the environment. While in East Timor, students will participate in a number of rural, urban and remote site visits during which time they will interact with local communities, civil society leaders, academics, government and aid organizations. The field trip will be under the supervision of the subject coordinators. Students are responsible for the cost of airfares, internal travel, accommodation and food.

The East Timor Field Course (GEOG30026/ GEOG90025) involves a full program of activities comprising travel to and around East Timor, including across remote and rough terrain using various modes of transportation (car, boat, foot). Students will be provided with privileged access to local Timorese communities and experiences, in both an urban, regional and rural setting. The East Timor Field Course can be emotionally and physically demanding and will include a level of personal intensity and challenge, and students are expected to manage their own personal health and safety.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes.

This subject examines the nature and causes of past changes in Earth’s climate during the Quaternary Period (the last 2.7 million years), with a particular emphasis on the last glacial-interglacial cycle. It aims to place modern climate and the projections of future global warming into a longer-term perspective, and will allow students to understand why human interference in the climate system may be a legitimate cause for concern. Emphasis is placed on how Earth materials (ice, rocks, sediments, landforms, biological materials) record past climate changes, the techniques used to extract this ‘palaeoenvironmental information’, and the principles that govern how this information is interpreted. Most of the subject will run prior to the start of semester one and be based around a field trip to the South Island of New Zealand. A pre-field trip essay will give students the basic background to the nature of Quaternary palaeoclimate. A series of lectures (held in Melbourne) will then cover the theoretical aspects of the subject in more detail, providing an important primer to the field work. The field component itself focuses on how particular environments (coastal, lake, fluvial, cave, and glacial) preserve evidence of past climate change. A further series of lectures and practicals will be conducted during the first 4 weeks of semester, and will focus on the nature of palaeoclimate data and how these are processed and interpreted. By the end of the subject, students will not only appreciate the dynamics of Earth’s past climate and the mechanisms that have forced it, but also the way in which we practice this important and growing field of study.

The estimated cost of the field trip is in the vicinity of $900. The field trip will take place in the weeks immediately prior to the first week of Semester 1.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes, and will be invited to a discussion session together at the end of their Capstone study and experience.

Fire is one of the most important controls over the distribution of vegetation on Earth. This subject examines the role of fire in natural systems, with a particular emphasis on the importance of fire in determining global vegetation patterns and dynamics over long periods of time. The aim is to understand how terrestrial systems have evolved to cope with and exploit fire, and to place the extreme flammability Australia's vegetation within a global context. The subject will examine concepts such as resilience, positive feedback loops, hysteresis and alternative stable states. The use of fire by humans to manipulate environments will be examined, with a particular emphasis on the variety of approaches employed by people across a diversity of environments over long periods of time, allowing an exploration of the social and cultural dynamics of fire and environmental management. A field excursion in Tasmania will visit a number of sites which will exemplify the subject themes. The practical exercises leading up to the field trip will focus on how to gather fire-related ecological data. The practical exercises following the field trip will be devoted to processing, analysing, interpreting and reporting on the field data. At the end of the subject, students will have gained an understanding of the way in which fire has shaped natural systems, as well as acquiring the skills necessary to formulate and test hypotheses.

More information about the subject and field trip can be seen at: http://michaelsresearch.wordpress.com/GEOG30025/

The estimated additional cost of the 7 day field trip to Cradle Mountain, Tasmania, is in the vicinity of $750.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes.

The subject is designed to develop students’ understanding of the physical processes of coasts and rivers, and how these processes interact, over time, to shape catchments and landscapes. A focus is on processes of erosion and deposition that occur as we follow the movement of water and sediment from hillsides, down rivers, through estuaries, to meet wave and tidal processes at the coast. A theme of the subject is the impact of humans on these geomorphic systems, and how these impacts can be predicted and managed. The subject will address major questions and challenges that are facing the management and research communities alike. These challenges include the impact of past and present management activities on both the fluvial and coastal processes. Furthermore, the impact of a changing climate on the rates and types of processes occurring in these dynamic environments will be addressed both from a holistic catchment perspective and at the individual landform scale. Management of coasts and rivers is a growing area of employment.

Using practicals and field-trips, students will develop their empirical and analytical skills including the use of ArcGIS (spatial mapping and geomorphic analysis), stratigraphic logging and interpretation, and topographic surveying. This subject includes a 3-day field trip to the Otways Ranges in western Victoria, occurring over a weekend during semester, where students will collect and interpret field data from coasts and rivers.

Everyone knows what ‘Sustainable Development’ is, but if you stop to think, it may become less clear. Sustainable development has become a chameleon, suiting different needs and fulfilling different roles for different people with different interests. In this subject, we will explore this appealing-yet-slippery idea with the aim of deciding whether it is a suitable concept with which to explore the cultural, environmental, and economic challenges facing society. Is sustainable development a useful idea, do we need to move on, or can we take it back?

In addition to the debates over sustainable development, this subject will provide students with the skills needed to examine, analyse, and report on challenges related to their interests. At its heart, the subject explores the primary question of sustainable development, which is whether it can be useful in a world (seemingly) approaching numerous catastrophic tipping points. The climate is changing, the oceans are acidifying, the soils cannot keep producing our food, and wealth is being concentrated amongst a smaller and smaller segment of the world. Is sustainable development helpful in understanding, and ideally changing, these trends?

There are also more practical considerations surrounding the debate over sustainable development. Some people might be interested in having a greater impact on the world through development projects, micro-credit, or volunteering. Is sustainable development helpful? Can the concept help individuals seeking to improve our world (or at least trying)? Does it help ensure that their efforts are beneficial and not perverted by opposing interests and processes?

It is also worth considering whether sustainable development might not be better thought of as an analytical framing: as a way of pulling apart problems or projects in order to better understand or assess their impact on ecological sustainability, development, or economics? Is sustainable development an analytical tool for making sense of ‘wicked’ problems?

In this subject we will review the history of sustainable development, which draws together literature from Geography, Sociology, Engineering, Psychology, Economics, and the Sciences. We will explore critiques of sustainable development, and force ourselves to consider whether it is possible, practical, or even useful in the ‘real world’. We will explore several key challenges, using sustainable development as a lens or framing. And finally and most creatively, we will attempt to reinterpret sustainable development in a world of growing inequality.

For more information see: http://briansresearch.wordpress.com/teaching/sustainable-development/

This subject examines principles in the two disciplines of hydrology and ecology, emphasising the application of both to understand how to solve environmental management problems in river ecosystems. The subject examines water in terms of quantity and quality; and the physical channel and floodplain systems in which it is conveyed and stored, along with transported materials such as sediments and organic matter. The subject also examines population, community and ecosystem dynamics of riverine organisms and their geographical distributions and diversities. Through practicals and fieldwork, students should develop skills in acquiring, analysing and presenting hydrological and ecological data, and in the identification and proper field sampling of stream biota. Students should become aware of the multidisciplinary nature of environmental management and the need for critical examination of ideas in the literature.

This field class subject, combining on-campus classes with periodic off-campus field work in the Melbourne area, asks the question: in what ways are local sites globally connected? Sites selected for field study around Melbourne will vary year by year, as will the specific processes studied geographically at those sites. For example, study might be made of a selection of places and communities damaged by recent bushfire or flood, investigating how globally-sourced advice, personnel and equipment played a part in responding to those events, forging lasting links between those local places and the sources of their global assistance. Or, the global sources of contamination of local ocean sites might be studied. Or, the global worlds of social media might be mapped, by looking at a set of local social media users within particular urban populations. Or, the manner in which local environmental or urban policies may be drawn from overseas situations might be examined and critiqued, involving investigation of governance sites/settings in our local area and the ways they connect globally.

This is a field class subject, for which the field work will be conducted in Melbourne or its immediate environs. It is not an intensive subject.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory learning materials that are common across all field classes.

This subject consists of a two-week field trip to China in July with some pre-departure (in semester 1) and post-field trip workshop/seminars (in semester 2) in Melbourne. The subject is designed to develop students’ interests in Asia, in China in particular, and in the interactions between society, economy, government, and the environment. While in China, students will interact with local communities, academics and environmental managers who will inform them about issues and processes in China. This will be supplemented by site visits and household interviews. The field trip will be under the supervision of the subject coordinators. Students are responsible for the cost of airfares, accommodation and food.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes, and will be invited to a discussion session together at the end of their Capstone study and experience.

This subject examines the impacts of disasters in cities. It will explore why some groups are more vulnerable to particular hazards than others, while considering the role of social capital and adaptation for increasing the resilience of urban communities to disasters.This is important because the trend towards increasing urbanisation and larger cities is a major contributor to the rising toll of disaster losses globally. In addition, climate change predictions indicate that natural hazards such as bushfires, floods, storms and cyclones are likely to increase in intensity and possibly also frequency in many places, including cities. Contemporary cases will be used to highlight key issues and policy debates. Implications for urban planning and disaster planning and management in cities and at the rural-urban interface will be considered.

Cases and examples will be drawn from around the world, primarily from developed countries. Students will have the opportunity to examine case/s of their own choosing (with approval from the subject coordinator), and will undertake locally based research in preparation of the field report. There will be a local field trip associated with this subject.

This subject introduces students to the physical environment, history and development challenges facing contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa. Students will examine in detail intellectual and ethical debates surrounding the strategies undertaken by postcolonial African states and the overseas development “industry” to tackle poverty, inequality, environmental change and the colonial legacy. Students will consider how Africa’s problems are portrayed and understood by the rest of the world. Topics may include: the physical environment and competing understandings of environmental change; the history and governance of the continent; regional case studies (West Africa and the D.R. Congo); agrarian transformations and rural livelihoods; development projects and rise of the NGO; military conflict and mineral wealth; hunger, famine, and the controversies of the relief industry; forestry; wildlife conservation; and urban geographies.

This subject consists of a 12-day field trip to East Timor in mid-year break with a series of compulsory pre-departure information sessions in semester 1 and a post-trip workshop in early Semester two. The subject is designed to develop students’ understanding of the Asia-Pacific region and in particular of the complex geographies of sm. all island and post-conflict states. Students will gain an in situ appreciation of the historical and contemporary issues relevant to East Timor and develop their empirical and analytical research skills while carrying out small group research into the impacts of conflict, climate and culture on social and economic development and the environment. While in East Timor, students will participate in a number of rural, urban and remote site visits during which time they will interact with local communities, civil society leaders, academics, government and aid organizations. The field trip will be under the supervision of the subject coordinators. Students are responsible for the cost of airfares, internal travel, accommodation and food.

The East Timor Field Course (GEOG30026/ GEOG90025) involves a full program of activities comprising travel to and around East Timor, including across remote and rough terrain using various modes of transportation (car, boat, foot). Students will be provided with privileged access to local Timorese communities and experiences, in both an urban, regional and rural setting. The East Timor Field Course can be emotionally and physically demanding and will include a level of personal intensity and challenge, and students are expected to manage their own personal health and safety.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes.

The scale of contemporary travel is staggering, involving tourists, business people, refugees, passengers, commuters, students, backpackers, migrants, stowaways, pirates, terrorists—and many more. Travel has often been seen as devoid of economic, political and socio-cultural significance. But issues of movement—too much or too little; too fast or too slow; or the wrong sort at the wrong time—are at the heart of many lives, organisations and governments. From airport expansion controversies to design responses to global warming; and from the spectre of driverless cars to the plight of homeless people, issues of ‘mobility’ are centre stage.

Through this subject we will be getting to grips with how and why things move. What are the meanings attached to these movements? How fast do things move? What routes do these movements take? How and when do things stop? All of these questions generate new ways of thinking about the emergence, distribution, and patterning of power in our contemporary globalising world. This subject will be taught intensively through a series of workshops and practicals, involving fieldwork in different areas of Melbourne.

Human migration is a defining feature of our world. Students will be introduced to key theories, concepts, trends, spatial patterns, and contemporary issues arising from international and internal migration. The topics covered will consider the scale and complexity of human mobility, including refugees and forced displacement; rural to urban migration; environmental disaster and displacement; labour, education and skilled migration; health, well-being and migration in the life course. The socio-cultural contexts, factors, and outcomes of migration will be examined drawing on perspectives from demography and human geography. Students will critically explore theories about the ‘push and pull’ factors that drive migration, and consider the implications, challenges, and opportunities of human migration ranging from the personal to the geopolitical level.

Who we are and what we do is all tangled up in our identity. This subject considers how identities are constructed and maintained through mediated processes of self and other. The subject investigates the myriad demands and devices that figure in constructing our senses of self and other (including language, leisure, beliefs and embodied practices). By exploring identity in diverse contexts, across time and place, the subject maps varying conceptions of self and other and how these conceptions are constructed and maintained. A key focus is on how these mediated conceptions of self and other are translated into material practices of inclusion, exclusion, discrimination, violence and criminalisation.

Language plays a central role in the central disciplinary areas in the humanities and social sciences. This subject gives students tools for thinking about language in a range of disciplines, including linguistics, history, sociology, politics, literary studies, anthropology, language studies, psychology and psychoanalytic theory. It shows how language can be analysed as a system, but also how language features centrally in politcal and social contexts: for example, in the processing of the claims of asylum seekers, in developing views of ethnicity, race and nation, and in colonialism; and in the construction of gendered and sexual identity. The role of language in the psyche, and the process of acquisition of languages in children and in adults, are also important topics. Knowing how to think about language, and familiarity with the main thinkers who have discussed language in a range of humanities and social science disciplines, provide an indispensable basis for study in any area of the Arts degree.

The idea of power is a way to grasp the character of social relations. Investigating power can tell us about who is in control and who may benefit from such arrangements. Power can be a zero-sum game of domination. It can also be about people acting together to enact freedom. This subject examines the diverse and subtle ways power may be exercised. It considers how power operates in different domains such as markets, political systems and other social contexts. It also examines how power may be moderated by such things as regulation and human rights. A key aim is to explore how differing perspectives portray power relations and how issues of power distribution may be characterised and addressed.

Reason, many believe, is what makes us human. Until recently, most scientists and philosophers agreed that the ability to use the mind to analyse and interpret the world is something intrinsic to the nature of our species. Reason has a long and extraordinary history. We will explore a number of inter-related themes: the nature of reason from Ancient Greece to our contemporary world; the ever shifting relationship between reason and faith; reason's place in the development of scientific experimentation and thinking; shifting perspectives about the uses of Reason and, finally, how reason relates to theories of the mind, exploring the tensions between reason, the passions and the will.

Reason will take you on a journey from Plato's cave to the neuro-scientists' lab. We will visit revolutions in science, thinking and politics. We will explore the impact of some of the great philosophers of history, including Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Bentham, Coleridge, Marx, Nietzsche, Foucault and many more besides. By the end of this subject you will have a deep understanding of the importance of the idea of reason to human history and philosophy. You might, even, be able to answer the question: 'does reason exist?'

Reason is an Arts Foundation Subject and we will argue that understanding the history and philosophy of reason provides great insights into many aspects of the humanities from political philosophy to understanding history. We will, of course, be paying particular attention to the foundational skills that will help you successfully complete your Arts major: particularly critical thinking and argument development.

This subject will provide students with an introduction to the complexity, challenges and richness of Australian Indigenous life and cultures. Drawing on a wide range of diverse and dynamic guest lecturers, this subject gives students an opportunity to encounter Australian Indigenous knowledges, histories and experiences through interdisciplinary perspectives. Across three thematic blocks - Indigenous Knowledges, Social and Political Contexts and Representation/Self-Representation - this subject engages contemporary cultural and intellectual debate. Social and political contexts will be considered through engagement with specific issues and a focus on Indigenous cultural forms, which may include literature, music, fine arts, museum exhibitions and performance, will allow students to consider self-representation as a means by which to disrupt and expand perceptions of Aboriginality.

Humans grapple with representations of themselves and their contexts. They also like to imagine other possible worlds. We use words, language, images, sounds and movement to construct narratives and stories, large and small, about the trivial and the profound, the past and the future. These representations can help us to understand worlds but they can also create worlds for us. This subject explores how different genres such as speech, writing, translation, film, theatre and art generate representations of social life, imagination and the human condition. A key aim of the subject is to develop a critical appreciation of how language, images and embodied gestures are used to construct empowering and disempowering discourses.

There are over 800 million people in the world who are chronically malnourished, and world hunger is rising. Yet the world already produces enough food to feed 1.5 times the global population. This subject explains the physical and social drivers of hunger, famines, and related crises in social-ecological systems. It proposes theories that explain famines and crises of scarcity, and tests these with evidence and case studies. In this way the subject introduces key issues, concepts, and theories central to geography, development, environmental studies and environmental science. The subject is interdisciplinary, providing students with a broad range of knowledge and analytical tools. Specifically, the subject draws together science and social science, introducing students to multiple disciplinary knowledge and practices.

This subject aims to think critically and rigorously about the relationship between social and natural worlds. Its primary purpose is to question the idea that the environment exists outside of, and independent from, the realms of science, culture, politics and economy. Students will be introduced to different conceptual frameworks for understanding the environment as a social entity; to the processes by which capitalism and science structures social and environmental relations; and to alternative modes of living in, and thinking about, the environment. These broad themes will be addressed through engaging examples from Australia and beyond. Particular attention will be given to the concept of 'wilderness'; the postcolonial nature of the zoo; ecotourism; the politics of visualising nature (e.g. through wildlife documentary); the 'new natures' of genetic modification; and ideas about 'environmental justice' and ‘climate crisis’.

The subject focuses on the dynamic surface of our planet and the environments it sustains. The Earth’s surface is shaped by a complex interaction of physical and biological processes operating over a range of spatial and temporal scales. Understanding these processes in the present day, as well as reconstructing landscape and ecological change in the past, enables us to predict their future response to climate change and human activity. In this subject, students will study the processes and spatial patterns that shape natural landscapes and learn about approaches of reconstructing their evolution. Students will gain an appreciation of the ways that the dynamics of natural landscapes need to be incorporated into environmental management and the conservation of biodiversity.

This includes an in-depth understanding of the wide spectrum of landforms (including mountains and hillslopes, glaciers, rivers, dunes, and coasts) and the processes contributing to their formation and decay. In addition, the subject addresses the geographic patterns and dynamics of life on the Earth’s surface and investigates the way in which certain landscapes support particular types of ecosystems (such as rainforest, grassland, desert, estuarine and marine communities). Finally, the factors that may cause change in natural landscapes are explored to assess the roles played by climate, tectonics and humans over various timescales.

Through lectures, practicals and multiple days of field work, students will develop skills in a range of field and lab-based analytical techniques, as well as the use of GIS, for investigating our environment. This subject includes a four-day field trip in Victoria set to take place during the mid-semester break.

Students must submit 80% of the lab practical assignments and attend the field trip to be eligible to pass the subject.

This subject explores a range of contemporary environmental problems in Australia and internationally. It uses case studies to understand the following: the history and emergence of the issues; the key actors who engage with and manage these issues; and the political dynamics and strategies for governance. The subject examines the multiple dimensions (scientific, socio-cultural, economic, political) of environmental issues and the forms of knowledge and types of power that construct and mediate people’s relationships with the environment. Students should become familiar with the factors that lead to environmental conflicts and the mechanisms used to contain or resolve them, and be able to interpret them in the context of broader questions relating to environmental governance and sustainability.

This subject is about a changing China. The focus of the subject is the ongoing social, economic and political transformation and the impacts of the reforms on China’s people and environment. The subject covers three sets of topics: Urban geography and China (housing and land reforms, changing morphology from socialism to capitalism, urban enclavism and gated communities, migrant workers and urban villages); China’s economic development (Open door policy and geography of “Made in China”; Wenzhou Model, Pearl-River-Delta Model, state-owned enterprises, inequality, poverty alleviation and migration, rural development and governance); and China’s environment challenges (water management, environmental governance, and climate change).

This subject is about the changing geography of ‘Red Capitalist’ China. The focus of the subject is the ongoing social, economic and political transformation and the impacts of the reforms on China’s people and environment. The subject covers three sets of topics: China’s many faces (generation conflicts; ethnic minorities, rural China; physical landscapes and environment; Chinese women - “half sky”); China in transition (large is not beautiful, population policy and one-child only; China’s reform model; open door policy and geography of “Made in China”; population mobility and urbanisation; and spatial shifts of development focus); China’s major challenges (AIDS/HIV, geography of commercial sex industry; income polarisation; corruption and “Guanxi” with Chinese characteristics; “get rich quickly” and environmental cost; development and resource demand; and Three Gorges Dam resettlement).

Post-conflict nation states are entangled with a diverse range of historically contingent and differently understood forms of social, economic and environmental governance. This creates new challenges and very often new conflict. This subject draws on critical geographies of development to examine the significance of difference to post-conflict development processes in the Asia Pacific region, including East Timor, Cambodia and The Philippines. It asks how ideas of social and cultural difference are deployed and experienced by a range of actors, and explores how these ideas are (re)negotiated as a result of social and political change and power. This subject provides students with a variety of theoretical lenses with which to analyze post-conflict development and social and cultural difference in the region. Difference and its relationship to development in post-conflict settings will be investigated through case studies of ethnicity and race, population mobility, material culture, urban development, justice and accountability mechanisms, and livelihood, conservation and resource exploitation conflicts.

This subject examines differences in diverse people’s experiences of urban life, the opportunities and challenges it offers them, and their ability to shape the city. We will examine how social differences such as class, gender, ethnicity, race, and disability have been understood in urban studies from varied theoretical perspectives, including liberalism, Marxism, feminism and postcolonialism. We will explore these themes with case studies from many cities around the world, with a particular interest in Melbourne, where students will undertake independent field research. Specific issues to be investigated include: the social and cultural lives of rich, poor, middle-class and gentrifying neighbourhoods; the negotiation of gender roles and relations in the private and public spheres of the city; intergenerational conflicts in urban housing and labour markets; inequalities in the spatial distribution of urban infrastructures such as roads, transport, education and health services; racial segregation and conflict; the displacement and marginalization of Aboriginal communities in Australian cities, and their activism. Students completing the subject will demonstrate in-depth understanding of how social inequalities develop and manifest in cities; but also, how cities can become places of resistance, inter-cultural encounter and transformation.

Inequality is a global phenomenon – something widely found to be growing within and between nations. This subject takes a critical geographic perspective, focused on understanding the variety of scales at which inequality appears. It looks beneath national comparative statistics on global inequality to (1) investigate the ways in which inequality is generated and materially experienced in selected societies, social groups and places, and (2) analyse how new forms and conditions of inequality may be emerging with the advent of conditions termed the Anthropocene (an epoch in which environmental conditions on our planet are profoundly influenced by human action). The subject examines ideas of justice that propose ways of reducing inequality, in the light of processes generating a variety of inequalities at different scales, and for different social groups and places. Examples will be drawn from urban, regional, neighbourhood and national contexts in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Geography and health are intrinsically linked. This subject examines geographic approaches to the understanding of human health. Its primary purpose is to critically review the links between population health and place/location, including social, built and natural environments. Students will be introduced to different theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches for understanding geographies of health. The subject has particular focus on current health geography concerns including the spatial distribution of (re)emerging infectious diseases, population health impacts of climatic and environmental change, migrant health, neighbourhoods and health, and social and spatial distribution of health risks and vulnerabilities. These themes will be addressed through important case studies from both Australia and internationally.

The modern world is facing unprecedented anthropogenic environmental change. Understanding the dynamic interplay between humans and our environment is of paramount importance if we are to successfully navigate this period of major environmental upheaval. Climate and environmental change have played a key role in shaping the biological, cultural, and geographic evolution of our species. What can an understanding of the past teach us about dealing with environmental change in the future?

This subject investigates the interrelationship between humans and their natural environments through time using evidence from physical and human geography, archaeology, palaeoanthropology, palaeoclimatology and palaeoecology. We will take a deep-time perspective, journeying from the emergence of humankind 6 million years ago to the present day. We will draw on case studies from around the word and across many different time periods, exploring how changing environments have influenced important transitions including the first migration of humans out of Africa, the emergence of symbolic behaviour, the beginning of agriculture and animal domestication, and resilience and collapse of complex societies. We will explore questions such as: Did environmental complexity shape brain development? Why did all other Homo species go extinct while Homo sapiens became dominant? Did humans play a role in the extinction of megafauna? Was the emergence of agriculture and domestication linked to changing environments? Is there a correlation between environmental change and the collapse of complex societies? How have human subsistence strategies and resource use impacted vegetation, animal species, soils and climate? How will anthropogenic climate change affect the future of our species?

The subject will include a 2-day fieldtrip to the World Heritage-nominated Budj Bim National Park in Victoria to learn about the long-term and continuing relationship that the Gunditjmara people have with their natural environment, and the ways in which they have both driven and adapted to environmental change. The field trip will take place during mid-Semester break.

This subject serves as an introduction to demography: the scientific study of human populations. The subject provides an overview of concepts, theories, and methodological approaches for understanding the changing patterns and determinants of population size, composition, and spatial distribution. Students will learn how components of population change – fertility, mortality, and migration – are interlinked with broader forces of development and social change in a comparative geographic perspective. Case studies will be used to discuss the socio-political and economic implications of population change in both developed and less developed regions of the world. In doing so, the subject highlights contemporary debates and policy challenges around demographic bonus, population ageing, immigration, marriage and family change, fertility and reproductive health, gender and work, urbanisation, poverty and inequality, and population and environment. Although the subject is non-technical, students will be introduced to online resources and tools for basic analysis and visualisation techniques of population data.

There has been an explosion in the collection, and availability, of spatial information in the modern era. Locational data from smart phones, drones, and new generations of satellites, are examples of the growing opportunities that spatial data present for geography. Spatial analysis skills are now in high demand among many employers.

Understanding how to think about spatial data, and how to analyse those data, provides transformational skills. This subject equips students to map connections between nature and people, spatialise the impacts of climate change on humans and their environment, and use spatial data to inform decisions. Students will also gain an understanding of technical, ethical and analytical dimensions of spatial data. This subject teaches broad spatial skills and is equally useful for students of human, environmental, or physical geography.

While the subject develops competency with relevant software, the emphasis is on understanding key concepts regarding spatial data and how to formulate and answer spatial questions. The subject is structured around weekly, computer-based practicals which combine spatial skills with critical thinking. Half of the assessment comes from assignments in which students individually solve spatial data problems in geography.

This subject examines the nature and causes of past changes in Earth’s climate during the Quaternary Period (the last 2.7 million years), with a particular emphasis on the last glacial-interglacial cycle. It aims to place modern climate and the projections of future global warming into a longer-term perspective, and will allow students to understand why human interference in the climate system may be a legitimate cause for concern. Emphasis is placed on how Earth materials (ice, rocks, sediments, landforms, biological materials) record past climate changes, the techniques used to extract this ‘palaeoenvironmental information’, and the principles that govern how this information is interpreted. Most of the subject will run prior to the start of semester one and be based around a field trip to the South Island of New Zealand. A pre-field trip essay will give students the basic background to the nature of Quaternary palaeoclimate. A series of lectures (held in Melbourne) will then cover the theoretical aspects of the subject in more detail, providing an important primer to the field work. The field component itself focuses on how particular environments (coastal, lake, fluvial, cave, and glacial) preserve evidence of past climate change. A further series of lectures and practicals will be conducted during the first 4 weeks of semester, and will focus on the nature of palaeoclimate data and how these are processed and interpreted. By the end of the subject, students will not only appreciate the dynamics of Earth’s past climate and the mechanisms that have forced it, but also the way in which we practice this important and growing field of study.

The estimated cost of the field trip is in the vicinity of $900. The field trip will take place in the weeks immediately prior to the first week of Semester 1.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes, and will be invited to a discussion session together at the end of their Capstone study and experience.

Fire is one of the most important controls over the distribution of vegetation on Earth. This subject examines the role of fire in natural systems, with a particular emphasis on the importance of fire in determining global vegetation patterns and dynamics over long periods of time. The aim is to understand how terrestrial systems have evolved to cope with and exploit fire, and to place the extreme flammability Australia's vegetation within a global context. The subject will examine concepts such as resilience, positive feedback loops, hysteresis and alternative stable states. The use of fire by humans to manipulate environments will be examined, with a particular emphasis on the variety of approaches employed by people across a diversity of environments over long periods of time, allowing an exploration of the social and cultural dynamics of fire and environmental management. A field excursion in Tasmania will visit a number of sites which will exemplify the subject themes. The practical exercises leading up to the field trip will focus on how to gather fire-related ecological data. The practical exercises following the field trip will be devoted to processing, analysing, interpreting and reporting on the field data. At the end of the subject, students will have gained an understanding of the way in which fire has shaped natural systems, as well as acquiring the skills necessary to formulate and test hypotheses.

More information about the subject and field trip can be seen at: http://michaelsresearch.wordpress.com/GEOG30025/

The estimated additional cost of the 7 day field trip to Cradle Mountain, Tasmania, is in the vicinity of $750.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes.

The subject is designed to develop students’ understanding of the physical processes of coasts and rivers, and how these processes interact, over time, to shape catchments and landscapes. A focus is on processes of erosion and deposition that occur as we follow the movement of water and sediment from hillsides, down rivers, through estuaries, to meet wave and tidal processes at the coast. A theme of the subject is the impact of humans on these geomorphic systems, and how these impacts can be predicted and managed. The subject will address major questions and challenges that are facing the management and research communities alike. These challenges include the impact of past and present management activities on both the fluvial and coastal processes. Furthermore, the impact of a changing climate on the rates and types of processes occurring in these dynamic environments will be addressed both from a holistic catchment perspective and at the individual landform scale. Management of coasts and rivers is a growing area of employment.

Using practicals and field-trips, students will develop their empirical and analytical skills including the use of ArcGIS (spatial mapping and geomorphic analysis), stratigraphic logging and interpretation, and topographic surveying. This subject includes a 3-day field trip to the Otways Ranges in western Victoria, occurring over a weekend during semester, where students will collect and interpret field data from coasts and rivers.

Everyone knows what ‘Sustainable Development’ is, but if you stop to think, it may become less clear. Sustainable development has become a chameleon, suiting different needs and fulfilling different roles for different people with different interests. In this subject, we will explore this appealing-yet-slippery idea with the aim of deciding whether it is a suitable concept with which to explore the cultural, environmental, and economic challenges facing society. Is sustainable development a useful idea, do we need to move on, or can we take it back?

In addition to the debates over sustainable development, this subject will provide students with the skills needed to examine, analyse, and report on challenges related to their interests. At its heart, the subject explores the primary question of sustainable development, which is whether it can be useful in a world (seemingly) approaching numerous catastrophic tipping points. The climate is changing, the oceans are acidifying, the soils cannot keep producing our food, and wealth is being concentrated amongst a smaller and smaller segment of the world. Is sustainable development helpful in understanding, and ideally changing, these trends?

There are also more practical considerations surrounding the debate over sustainable development. Some people might be interested in having a greater impact on the world through development projects, micro-credit, or volunteering. Is sustainable development helpful? Can the concept help individuals seeking to improve our world (or at least trying)? Does it help ensure that their efforts are beneficial and not perverted by opposing interests and processes?

It is also worth considering whether sustainable development might not be better thought of as an analytical framing: as a way of pulling apart problems or projects in order to better understand or assess their impact on ecological sustainability, development, or economics? Is sustainable development an analytical tool for making sense of ‘wicked’ problems?

In this subject we will review the history of sustainable development, which draws together literature from Geography, Sociology, Engineering, Psychology, Economics, and the Sciences. We will explore critiques of sustainable development, and force ourselves to consider whether it is possible, practical, or even useful in the ‘real world’. We will explore several key challenges, using sustainable development as a lens or framing. And finally and most creatively, we will attempt to reinterpret sustainable development in a world of growing inequality.

For more information see: http://briansresearch.wordpress.com/teaching/sustainable-development/

This subject examines principles in the two disciplines of hydrology and ecology, emphasising the application of both to understand how to solve environmental management problems in river ecosystems. The subject examines water in terms of quantity and quality; and the physical channel and floodplain systems in which it is conveyed and stored, along with transported materials such as sediments and organic matter. The subject also examines population, community and ecosystem dynamics of riverine organisms and their geographical distributions and diversities. Through practicals and fieldwork, students should develop skills in acquiring, analysing and presenting hydrological and ecological data, and in the identification and proper field sampling of stream biota. Students should become aware of the multidisciplinary nature of environmental management and the need for critical examination of ideas in the literature.

This field class subject, combining on-campus classes with periodic off-campus field work in the Melbourne area, asks the question: in what ways are local sites globally connected? Sites selected for field study around Melbourne will vary year by year, as will the specific processes studied geographically at those sites. For example, study might be made of a selection of places and communities damaged by recent bushfire or flood, investigating how globally-sourced advice, personnel and equipment played a part in responding to those events, forging lasting links between those local places and the sources of their global assistance. Or, the global sources of contamination of local ocean sites might be studied. Or, the global worlds of social media might be mapped, by looking at a set of local social media users within particular urban populations. Or, the manner in which local environmental or urban policies may be drawn from overseas situations might be examined and critiqued, involving investigation of governance sites/settings in our local area and the ways they connect globally.

This is a field class subject, for which the field work will be conducted in Melbourne or its immediate environs. It is not an intensive subject.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory learning materials that are common across all field classes.

This subject consists of a two-week field trip to China in July with some pre-departure (in semester 1) and post-field trip workshop/seminars (in semester 2) in Melbourne. The subject is designed to develop students’ interests in Asia, in China in particular, and in the interactions between society, economy, government, and the environment. While in China, students will interact with local communities, academics and environmental managers who will inform them about issues and processes in China. This will be supplemented by site visits and household interviews. The field trip will be under the supervision of the subject coordinators. Students are responsible for the cost of airfares, accommodation and food.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes, and will be invited to a discussion session together at the end of their Capstone study and experience.

This subject examines the impacts of disasters in cities. It will explore why some groups are more vulnerable to particular hazards than others, while considering the role of social capital and adaptation for increasing the resilience of urban communities to disasters.This is important because the trend towards increasing urbanisation and larger cities is a major contributor to the rising toll of disaster losses globally. In addition, climate change predictions indicate that natural hazards such as bushfires, floods, storms and cyclones are likely to increase in intensity and possibly also frequency in many places, including cities. Contemporary cases will be used to highlight key issues and policy debates. Implications for urban planning and disaster planning and management in cities and at the rural-urban interface will be considered.

Cases and examples will be drawn from around the world, primarily from developed countries. Students will have the opportunity to examine case/s of their own choosing (with approval from the subject coordinator), and will undertake locally based research in preparation of the field report. There will be a local field trip associated with this subject.

This subject introduces students to the physical environment, history and development challenges facing contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa. Students will examine in detail intellectual and ethical debates surrounding the strategies undertaken by postcolonial African states and the overseas development “industry” to tackle poverty, inequality, environmental change and the colonial legacy. Students will consider how Africa’s problems are portrayed and understood by the rest of the world. Topics may include: the physical environment and competing understandings of environmental change; the history and governance of the continent; regional case studies (West Africa and the D.R. Congo); agrarian transformations and rural livelihoods; development projects and rise of the NGO; military conflict and mineral wealth; hunger, famine, and the controversies of the relief industry; forestry; wildlife conservation; and urban geographies.

This subject consists of a 12-day field trip to East Timor in mid-year break with a series of compulsory pre-departure information sessions in semester 1 and a post-trip workshop in early Semester two. The subject is designed to develop students’ understanding of the Asia-Pacific region and in particular of the complex geographies of sm. all island and post-conflict states. Students will gain an in situ appreciation of the historical and contemporary issues relevant to East Timor and develop their empirical and analytical research skills while carrying out small group research into the impacts of conflict, climate and culture on social and economic development and the environment. While in East Timor, students will participate in a number of rural, urban and remote site visits during which time they will interact with local communities, civil society leaders, academics, government and aid organizations. The field trip will be under the supervision of the subject coordinators. Students are responsible for the cost of airfares, internal travel, accommodation and food.

The East Timor Field Course (GEOG30026/ GEOG90025) involves a full program of activities comprising travel to and around East Timor, including across remote and rough terrain using various modes of transportation (car, boat, foot). Students will be provided with privileged access to local Timorese communities and experiences, in both an urban, regional and rural setting. The East Timor Field Course can be emotionally and physically demanding and will include a level of personal intensity and challenge, and students are expected to manage their own personal health and safety.

Note this subject may be taken as the Capstone subject in the Geography major of the BA and BSc. All students, whether they are capstone students or not, will be required to complete online introductory materials that are common across all field classes.

The scale of contemporary travel is staggering, involving tourists, business people, refugees, passengers, commuters, students, backpackers, migrants, stowaways, pirates, terrorists—and many more. Travel has often been seen as devoid of economic, political and socio-cultural significance. But issues of movement—too much or too little; too fast or too slow; or the wrong sort at the wrong time—are at the heart of many lives, organisations and governments. From airport expansion controversies to design responses to global warming; and from the spectre of driverless cars to the plight of homeless people, issues of ‘mobility’ are centre stage.

Through this subject we will be getting to grips with how and why things move. What are the meanings attached to these movements? How fast do things move? What routes do these movements take? How and when do things stop? All of these questions generate new ways of thinking about the emergence, distribution, and patterning of power in our contemporary globalising world. This subject will be taught intensively through a series of workshops and practicals, involving fieldwork in different areas of Melbourne.

Human migration is a defining feature of our world. Students will be introduced to key theories, concepts, trends, spatial patterns, and contemporary issues arising from international and internal migration. The topics covered will consider the scale and complexity of human mobility, including refugees and forced displacement; rural to urban migration; environmental disaster and displacement; labour, education and skilled migration; health, well-being and migration in the life course. The socio-cultural contexts, factors, and outcomes of migration will be examined drawing on perspectives from demography and human geography. Students will critically explore theories about the ‘push and pull’ factors that drive migration, and consider the implications, challenges, and opportunities of human migration ranging from the personal to the geopolitical level.