| Credit |
6 points |
| Availability |
Semester 2 |
| Old unit code |
020.201 |
| Outcomes |
Students (1) analyse literary representations of Europeans' confrontation and engagement with questions of civilisation in their own and other societies; (2) trace the development of European concepts of civilisation, civility and civil society; (3) elaborate and compare theories of European civilisation; (4) understand the different forms and types of European civilisation; (5) engage with debates about Eurocentrism and the failures of European civilisation with reference to central themes of European history; and (6) understand and apply the principles of analytical thinking, clear writing and correct documentation in short assignments and essays. |
| Content |
How have Europeans confronted and questioned aspects of European identity in their encounters with self and other? Civilisation and Barbarism takes as its theme the self-understanding of European civilisation in its encounters with the primitive, the barbaric and the savage since the Renaissance. The oppositions of 'civilisation' and 'barbarism', and 'civilisation' and 'nature', are central to the European tradition of self-questioning and are traced through from the Renaissance writers Montaigne and Shakespeare to Rousseau in the eighteenth century to late Enlightenment and romantic writers around the time of the French Revolution. Sigmund Freud's twentieth-century analysis of the discontent of civilisation is read in the context of the developments of European communism and fascism. Examples of post-war literature and contemporary film bring the unit content up to the present, providing a coherent sociohistorical and cultural understanding of central processes of European self-understanding. |
| Assessment |
This comprises an assignment, essays, tutorial participation and/or examination.
Supplementary assessment is not available in this unit except in the case of a bachelor's pass degree student who has obtained a mark of 45 to 49 and is currently enrolled in this unit, and it is the only remaining unit that the student must pass in order to complete their course. |
| Unit Co-ordinator(s) |
Chris Bond |
| Location |
UWA (Crawley) |
| Mode |
on-campus |
| Unit Rules |
| Prerequisites: 24 points of Level 1 units in any Arts discipline |
Contact hours—lecture/workshops: 20 hrs; tutorials: 10 hrs (over 10 weeks)
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| Texts |
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- The availability of units in Semester 1, 2, etc. was correct at the time of going to press but may be subject to change.
- Assistance with study skills, including English language skills, is available free of charge from Student Services for all enrolled students (see http://www.studentservices.uwa.edu.au/ss/learning). Student Services location: Second Floor, South Wing, Guild Village; telephone: 6488 2423.
- Books and other materials wherever listed may be subject to change. Book lists relating to 'Preliminary Reading', 'Recommended Reading' and 'Textbooks' are, in most cases, available at the University Co-operative Bookshop (from early January) and appropriate administrative offices for students to consult. For first-year units the Bookshop will endeavour to make available photocopies of book lists for individual units. Books marked with an asterisk (*) are available in paperback.
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