Reflective journal

Reflective Journal Topics 2021

The purpose of this assessment exercise is twofold: firstly, it aims to get you to think

critically about several key issues raised in your readings and the accompanying lectures;

secondly, it aims to get you to begin using the critical terminology you will have

encountered in your readings and the accompanying lectures. Thinking critically means

thinking in a way that demands and seeks clarity of ideas, precision with definitions, and an

understanding of key presuppositions.

Presuppositions are in many ways the most important focus of what critical thinking entails

because it essentially demands that we interrogate what we take for granted, i.e. that which

we don’t think about but nonetheless think with. Critiques of ‘white privilege’, ‘gender bias’,

‘homophobia’ and so on are all critiques of presuppositions, assumptions that are made

about the world that aren’t factored into thought. When we think or say, ‘that’s no job for a

woman’ (as people have said in the past about a range of professions) we are presupposing

a set intrinsic limits and restrictions relating to our understanding of what being a woman

entails. Overturning those assumptions has been a century long labour of critical thinking

and activism.

Taking that same critical mindset of refusing to accept assumptions at face value, your task

with the following questions is to write short critical responses (250 words per question)

that address the critical issues they raise. I have added a brief outline of the issues that I

think these questions raise, but you should feel free to add your own, and to respond

selectively (ie I don’t expect you to respond to all the issues).

Please note the word limit: 250 words per topic (max of 1000 words in total for all 4 topics

combined).

Week 2 Australia Day What social and cultural purpose does Australia Day serve?

Issues to consider:

• According to Stuart Hall culture is a binding agent.

• What does Hobsbawm say about the purpose of invented traditions?

• According to Anderson, what is required to sustain imagined communities?

• Can Australia be considered cosmopolitan?

Week 3 The Beach

The beach is a space where Australian identity is performed?

Issues to consider:

• According to Goffman, all social roles and identities are performed.

• Moreton-Robinson argues that Australian culture celebrates the beach as a ‘white’

space, thus ignoring and obscuring Indigenous Peoples’ use of the beach.

• The beach is a gendered space.

• The beach is both a cultural and natural space.

Week 4 Aquariums

Does the aquarium commodify nature?

Issues to consider:

• The aquarium is a business.

• Even that which appears nature, such as the clarity of the water, isn’t.

• Aquariums offer edutainment.

• The species on display reflect cultural choices (e.g., Nemo)

Week 5 Mobility

The various ‘lockdowns’ put in place in response to Covid-19 reveal the degree to which

mobility is a central fact of contemporary life.

• In the intimate sphere, mobility challenges our understanding of what it means to be

in a relationship.

• We depend on the movement of objects for our lifestyle.

• We enjoy the mobility of tastes – we enjoy Japanese food, for example, without ever

having to go to Japan.

• Mobility is an issue of justice.