The basis of this blog, Freud in Oceania, is the influence of Freud’s ideas within Australian culture and history. There has been some comment in the Australian Press that La Trobe University, my alma mater, had pulled Australian History this year due to low enrolments. It seems that, to the contrary, the subject is alive and well, building on the work of creative historians such as John Hirst, Richard Broome and Marilyn Lake among others. How Australia has found its way into the modern world is an extremely complex story. I am reblogging this post from the La Trobe University Bulletin for your interest.
Will our next generation end up knowing enough about the land they live in and what it means to be Australian?
That question has become an early contender in public debate about the possible long-term impact of student course choices under the new demand-driven higher education system.
While he admits Australian history may no longer be the most popular area with some of today’s students, La Trobe Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tim Murray says: ‘It is important for us as a nation that students have a good grasp of our history’.
The challenge for educators, he adds, is to change any such perceptions by redesigning courses that make Australian history more relevant for students in the 21st century.
And La Trobe – which has one of the leading higher education history programs in the country –remains committed to achieving that. Despite recent concerns, first year numbers are holding…
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I agree Christine on the fundamental importance of learning history, our own so-called Australian history first and foremost, but also other histories and from as many different perspectives as possible.
Indeed… Australia has grown from many histories internationally – European, Asian as well as Indigenous – with as many paradigms and perspectives as become inetegrated into our analysis and writing of history. There is more than one, many, in fact, all an interpretation. I am not sure we can know the past as it was lived.