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This course offers students the opportunity to enhance their cultural competencies by exploring in detail Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literatures. Students are given the opportunity to challenge mainstream perceptions and stereotypes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through a celebration of First Nations stories, songs, art, writing and literature that are grounded in strength and cultural pride. This course sits within a suite of courses that forms a major in First Nations peoples studies, and is a celebration of First Nations peoples’ written words, and warrior women and men.

This course has a dual ambition of introducing USQ students to a traditionally oral culture through its written words and literature and a changing of perceptions through an analysis of seldom told stories. A journey through Indigenous voices in a variety of texts, including poetry, theatre, autobiography, early writings and film will be undertaken. Through a weekly lecture and a two hour tutorial the course will examine representations of Indigeneity as represented in or absent from selected texts. Aboriginal creation stories, autobiographies, short stories, poems and a novel will be explored alongside Torres Strait Islander poems, songs, resistance stories, creation stories and theoretical and cultural positionings. The role of Aboriginal narrative forms in modern society will be explored from a position that a solid theoretical and cultural/ historical grounding is important for any literary/artistic analysis.

On successful completion of this course students should be able to:

1. Evaluate the relationship between mainstream narratives and Aboriginal representations of self.
2. Appreciate the diversity of cultural and historical backgrounds of Indigenous people by being exposed to a diverse range of First Nations creativity.
3. Identify and analyse the differences between written and oral cultures.
4. Identify and analyse contemporary First Nations stories and cultures and participate in a celebration of cultural strength and survival.