Please note that all course offerings are subject to change. Changes in faculty availability and student enrollment can occasionally result in course cancellations.
Please review the NYU Sydney Registration Guidelines for important information before registering for classes.
A list of all courses offered at the Global Academic Centers, organized by department, can be found here.
The Australian imagination is wondrous, vast, quirky and full of contradictions. Australians like to see their nation as, variously: the ‘lucky country’, yet with a debt to pay for the theft of Indigenous people’s land; the ‘land of the fair go’, which cruelly detains refugees; a place with a satirical sense of humour, coupled with a noticeably sentimental worldview; a multicultural nation with a history of a ‘white Australia policy’; a place proud of its traditions of egalitarianism and mateship, with rules about who is allowed in ‘the club’; a place with distinctive local traditions, which takes many of its cues from global culture; a place with a history of anti-British and anti-American sentiment that also has had strong political allegiances and military pacts with Britain and the USA; a place of a laid-back, easy going attitude with a large degree of Governmental control of individual liberties; a highly urbanised population that romances ‘the bush’ and ‘the outback’ as embodying ‘real’ Australia; and a place with a history of progressive social policy and a democratic tradition, which has never undergone a revolution. This course will provide ways of making sense of these contradictions.
This course offers an introduction to some of the classical and current issues in the anthropology of
Indigenous Australia. The role of anthropology in the representation and governance of Indigenous
life is itself an important subject for anthropological inquiry, considering that Indigenous people of
Australia have long been the objects of interest and imagination by outsiders for their cultural
formulations of kinship, ritual, art, gender, and politics. These representations—in feature films
about them (such as Rabbit-Proof Fence and Australia), New Age Literature (such as Mutant
Message Down Under), or museum exhibitions (such as in the Museum of Sydney or the Australian
Museum—are now also in dialogue with Indigenous forms of cultural production, in genres as
diverse as film, television, drama, dance, and archiving. The course will explore how Aboriginal
people have struggled to reproduce themselves and their traditions on their own terms, asserting
their right to forms of cultural autonomy and self-determination. Through the examination of
ethnographic texts, historical accounts, films, live performances, and an autobiography, we will consider the ways in which Aboriginalities are being challenged and constructed in contemporary
Australia.
This course is a survey of some of the principal themes and issues in the development of Indigenous Art in Australia. It focuses on some of the regional and historical variations of Aboriginal art in the context of the history of a settler nation, while considering the issues of its circulation and evaluation within contemporary discourses of value. Topics include the cosmological dimensions of the art, its political implications, its relationship to cultural identity, and its aesthetic frameworks.
This course is a survey of some of the principal themes and issues in the development of Indigenous Art in Australia. It focuses on some of the regional and historical variations of Aboriginal art in the context of the history of a settler nation, while considering the issues of its circulation and evaluation within contemporary discourses of value. Topics include the cosmological dimensions of the art, its political implications, its relationship to cultural identity, and its aesthetic frameworks.
Prerequisite: high school chemistry and BIOL-UA 11, Principles of Biology I or equivalent
Students registering for this course must also register for the Laboratory section
This course gives a broad overview of biology from an evolutionary perspective. Students will be introduced to the major biological forms and functions using a comparative approach. Particular emphasis will be given to how biological structures and systems are adapted to life history and ecology.
Taken in conjunction with the Principles of Biology II Lecture
Laboratory exercises illustrate the basics of experimental biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry as well as the diversity of life forms and organ systems.
Taken in conjuction with BIOL-UA 9012/Principles of Biology II Lecture and Lab.
Prerequisite: CHEM-UA 243, Organic Chemistry I or its equivalent
Students registering for this course must also register for the Laboratory section
The aim of the course is to introduce advanced concepts in organic chemistry with particular emphasis on aromatic and carbonyl systems. Some simple aspects of biochemistry including carbohydrates will be discussed. The importance of spectroscopic techniques in organic chemistry will be emphasised.
Taken in conjuction wtih CHEM-UA 9244/Organic Chemistry Lecture and CHEM-UA 9246/Organic Chemistry Lab.
Taken in conjunction with the Organic Chemistry II Lecture
Weekly 41/2 hr. laboratory session. A pre-lab session of 20 minutes will take place at the beginning of each practical class. Students will acquire the practical skills of Organic Chemistry and will become familiar with organic laboratory procedures and techniques.
In this class students are encouraged to consider the intersectional environments (natural, urban,
cultural, historical etc.) that they interact with and within, and how their sensibilities differ living away
from home to contemplate how a sense of place can be conveyed through writing.
This course is an introduction to the literatures of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific region, with a focus on indigenous, migrant and diasporic writing. In addition to major texts from Australia and New Zealand, we will also encounter a range of works from Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and the Pacific islands. Some questions we will tackle include: How have the cultural, historical, and economic processes of colonialism, diaspora and migration connected and shaped this diverse region? How have issues of race and indigeneity been central to various discourses of nationalism? What particular roles have Australia and New Zealand, as sub-imperial powers, played in the region? Finally, what can the latest generation of migrant writing in Australia show us about new forms of interconnections across the globalizing Asia-Pacific? Students in this course will examine novels, poetry, films and theoretical texts to develop critical thinking, reading and writing skills. Along the way, they will gain a solid grounding in the problematics of postcolonialism, race, diaspora, indigeneity, nationalism and multiculturalism.
How do we read ‘nature’? Is there a ‘natural’ way to understand the ‘real’? This course explores issues in the textual mapping of relationships between the environmental, the ecological and the semiotic. It assumes that however 'natural' nature itself may be, the human understanding of it is necessarily constructed. We trace the origins and development of key tropes in ecological philosophy: including wilderness, pastoral, pollution and apocalypse. Principle texts in this course include American and Australian novels, films and documentaries, read alongside supplementary sources in literary, audio and artistic mediums. We ask how literature—one of the richest arenas for the practice of human imagination—does, has, or could shape environmental thought and action. How does the non-human world enter into literature? What are the historical and structural obstacles to admitting different forms of consciousness into text? What literary genres and styles are called forth by the huge ecological challenges of our times?
In this hybrid reading / writing class, we will explore environmental journalism from an Australian perspective. Each week we will read and discuss work that explores this journalistic tradition, its forms and its themes and the place it takes in the new media world. Drawing our inspiration from great writers, we will find our own stories, our own voices and learn to tell our own tales.
How do we read ‘nature’? Is there a ‘natural’ way to understand the ‘real’? This course explores issues in the textual mapping of relationships between the environmental, the ecological and the semiotic. It assumes that however 'natural' nature itself may be, the human understanding of it is necessarily constructed. We trace the origins and development of key tropes in ecological philosophy: including wilderness, pastoral, pollution and apocalypse. Principle texts in this course include American and Australian novels, films and documentaries, read alongside supplementary sources in literary, audio and artistic mediums. We ask how literature—one of the richest arenas for the practice of human imagination—does, has, or could shape environmental thought and action. How does the non-human world enter into literature? What are the historical and structural obstacles to admitting different forms of consciousness into text? What literary genres and styles are called forth by the huge ecological challenges of our times?
In this class students are encouraged to consider the intersectional environments (natural, urban,
cultural, historical etc.) that they interact with and within, and how their sensibilities differ living away
from home to contemplate how a sense of place can be conveyed through writing.
Journalism and Society: Science, Environment and Politics - JOUR-UA 9503 or ENVST-UA 9503 - 4 points
In this hybrid reading / writing class, we will explore environmental journalism from an Australian perspective. Each week we will read and discuss work that explores this journalistic tradition, its forms and its themes and the place it takes in the new media world. Drawing our inspiration from great writers, we will find our own stories, our own voices and learn to tell our own tales.
This course brings together diverse issues and perspectives in rapidly evolving areas of international/global communication. Historical and theoretical frameworks will be provided to help students to approach the scope, disparity and complexity of current developments in our media landscape.
Students will be encouraged to critically assess shifts in national, regional, and international media patterns of production, distribution, and consumption over time, leading to analysis of the tumultuous contemporary global communication environment. Key concepts associated with international communication will be examined, including a focus on trends in national and global media consolidation, cultural implications of globalisation, international broadcasting, information flows, international communication law and regulation, and trends in communication and information technologies. The focus of the course will be international, with a particular emphasis on Australia.
Ultimately, we will examine the ways in which global communication is undergoing a fundamental paradigm shift, as demonstrated by the Arab spring, the Olympics coverage, and the creeping dominance of Google, Facebook and Twitter.
Prerequisite for NYU Students: PSYCH-UA 1/Introduction to Psychology
This course will help you understand human psychological development, focusing on selected issues and empirical traditions within the discipline of Developmental Psychology. You will gain an understanding of the theoretical influences that have come to dominate developmental research and will be introduced to a range of theoretical and research approaches in contemporary Developmental Psychology. These include: the role of genetic and environmental influences on development, self-understanding and self-worth, social cognition, attachment, and gender role and identity. The course will also consider applications of developmental research and children’s experience of the legal system. Students are expected to gain knowledge of, and develop a critical approach to, the analysis of current research and theoretical issues in these areas.
Priority: September 15
Regular: October 15
Applications received after October 15 will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Admission will be granted only when space is available and time allows for required travel documents to be attained.
