James Cook University Subject Handbook - 2021

HI1001 - A Time Traveller's Guide to Australian History: From Dream time to Federation.

Subject Description

Time is the historian's medium. History is time travel. A Time Traveller's Guide to Australian History begins on the earth's oldest continent among people belonging to the world's longest established and continuous culture, before boarding convict ships with felons and outcasts from Britain and Ireland who find themselves exiled to this old but for them strangely new and alien world. We reach back into a deep past of creation myths, song lines and the dream time and introduce the Anthropocene as a way of approaching that long ago place-time before pressing forward to the arrival of a distant people for whom the seasons are reversed, who measure time in terms of prison sentences, and who possess chronometers that allow them to traverse the high seas and hour glasses, clocks and calendars that keep them connected to the worlds they have left behind. Along the way we encounter many fascinating situations from colonial violence and survival on the frontiers, rebelliousness and criminality in the gaols and in the bush, success and failure on the land and in the cities, companionship between and among women and men, and longing and belonging in art and literature. We meet some likely and very unlikely historical figures who contribute to Australia's distinctiveness. A Time Traveller's Guide to Australian History contrasts the timeless land and original peoples with newly arrived settlers and disruptors before terminating on the first day of twentieth century when the Australian nation was proclaimed.

Learning Outcomes

• differentiate forms of time and their development within Australian historical, social and cultural contexts, leading to an ability to recognise and identify time as the historian's medium
• apply historical techniques in analysis, leading to an ability to interpret and evaluate specific contexts and periods of Indigenous and Colonial Australian history
• identify Indigenous and Settler approaches to time and to history within specific social and cultural contexts, leading to an ability to recognise their application and significance in the study of Australian history
• classify the broad categories of Indigenous and Colonial Australian history within specific social and cultural contexts, leading to an ability to recognise these key branches and their functions
• deconstruct representations of time and history, leading to an ability to identify different forms and types of cultural construction and their consumption, leading to greater self awareness and critical skills in the analysis of Australian history
• develop appropriate analytical skills in research and writing history, leading to competence in the use and interpretation of resources and archives

Subject Assessment

• Written > Test/Quiz 1 - (30%) - Individual
• Participation > Class participation - (10%) - Individual
• Written > Essay (including multi-draft) 1 - (40%) - Individual
• Participation > Research/Project participation - (20%) - Individual

Note that minor variations might occur due to the continuous subject quality improvement process, and in case of minor variation(s) in assessment details, the Subject Outline represents the latest official information.

Availabilities