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2025 unit information
Trimester 1: Burwood (Melbourne), Waurn Ponds (Geelong), Online, Community Based Delivery (CBD)*
Nil
1 x 1-hour on-campus lecture per week
1 x 1-hour on-campus seminar per week
1 x 1-hour online lecture per week (recordings provided)
1 x 1-hour online seminar per week
Students will on average spend 150-hours over the teaching period undertaking the teaching, learning and assessment activities for this unit.
This will include educator guided online learning activities within the unit site.
*Community Based Delivery (CBD): only for students of the National Indigenous Knowledges, Education, Research and Innovation NIKERI Institute (located at the Waurn Ponds campus)
This unit introduces students to the various ways that “being human” is understood and experienced among different groups of people, particularly in their classifications of, and relationships with, nonhumans, such as animals and deities. A framework of what it means to be human often presupposes a certain definition of consciousness. For the most part, this is predicated on the subjective “I” and a corollary understanding of the individual. But is this framework universal? How do people in non-modern societies, for example, convey what it means to be human? This unit explores the multiple ways of “being human” and suggests that one articulation reveals itself through relationships with nonhumans. By examining how nonhumans are included into society – through kinship structures, for example – and the implications on notions of personhood and consciousness, this unit opens up the possibilities of what it means to be human while simultaneously clarifying its scope.
Alignment to Deakin Graduate Learning Outcomes (GLOs)
Define and assess broad approaches within human-nonhuman relations, with a critical awareness of dualism and its implications
GLO1: Discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities
GLO4: Critical thinking
Analyse (articulate, synthesize and compare) how personhood is understood among various groups of peoples from non-modern societies
Conduct ethnographic observations of everyday classificatory categories in student pairs to demonstrate how categories are constructed
GLO7: Teamwork
Compare and contrast human-nonhuman relations across the globe, and reflect on the observations with awareness of one's own assumptions and practices
GLO8: Global citizenship
The assessment due weeks provided may change. The Unit Chair will clarify the exact assessment requirements, including the due date, at the start of the teaching period.
The texts and reading list for ASS203 can be found via the University Library. Note: Select the relevant trimester reading list. Please note that a future teaching period's reading list may not be available until a month prior to the start of that teaching period so you may wish to use the relevant trimester's prior year reading list as a guide only.
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Tuition fees increase at the beginning of each calendar year and all fees quoted are in Australian dollars ($AUD). Tuition fees do not include textbooks, computer equipment or software, other equipment or costs such as mandatory checks, travel and stationery.
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