HIST2211
10 units
2000 level
Course handbook
Description
Computers, clothes, coal, cars, cosmetics, and Coca-Cola are commodities that shape people’s daily lives. The development of modern globalised commodity industries since the 1850s has connected people in many places around the world. For this reason, changes in making, selling, buying and consuming commodities offer valuable insights into human ingenuity, protection and conservation, and cruelty. This course considers the history of environmental, social and economic costs and benefits of globalised things. It does so by exploring how the development of things has played out in the actions of governments, corporations and protest movements through the politics of nature, labour, race, trade, education and science.
Availability2024 Course Timetables
Callaghan
- Semester 1 - 2024
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the course students will be able to:
1. Understand concepts that historians use to interpret the role of things in their explanations about the modern world;
2. Communicate clearly in oral and digital formats about how things are related to nature and the choices that people made in the past;
3. Accurately locate specific commodity histories in time and place;
4. Effectively examine and discuss selected primary sources to make an argument about commodities and the modern world.
Content
Topics may include:
- Things in relation to humans in history
- Things and more-than-human nature in history
- Things as commodities or saleable goods
- Specific modern commodity histories
- Commodities, policy and the law
- Money and power
- Capitalism and work
- Capitalism and protest
- Brands and identity
- Keeping things, discarding things
Assumed knowledge
20 units in History at 1000 level or equivalent
Assessment items
Online Learning Activity: Multiple short online tasks and reflections
Exhibition / Poster: Online multi-media presentation
Essay: Research Essay
Contact hours
Semester 1 - 2024 - Callaghan
Lecture-1
- Face to Face On Campus 1 hour(s) per week(s) for 12 week(s) starting in week 1
Tutorial-1
- Face to Face On Campus 1 hour(s) per week(s) for 11 week(s) starting in week 2
Course outline
- HIST2211 - Semester 1, 2024 (Callaghan) (PDF, 246.9 KB)
The University of Newcastle acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands within our footprint areas: Awabakal, Darkinjung, Biripai, Worimi, Wonnarua, and Eora Nations. We also pay respect to the wisdom of our Elders past and present.