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Study online with La Trobe University through Open Universities Australia. Explore all degrees, subjects and short courses now.

With our flexible Bachelor of Arts, you can choose from a wide range of majors and minors taught by La Trobe&#39;s passionate and committed staff. This flexible degree allows you to pursue your passion and your profession, while keeping your career options open.Shape your own future with this interdisciplinary course. You’ll specialise in at least one area by choosing a major from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS), and then explore your interests or build an essential skill by choosing secondary majors, minors and electives from HUSS and select other areas of the University. You’ll graduate with your majors and minors listed on your academic transcript, so future employers can recognise your expertise.Create your own path. Want to major in Sociology, with a second major in Marketing, then take a Creative and Professional Writing subject as an elective? Go for it. Or perhaps you’d like to pair Politics and English? Or Crime, Justice and Legal Studies with Linguistics? Build your own future – we’re here to help you achieve your dream. No matter which path you choose, you’ll learn from world-class academics and leading researchers.In your first year, you’ll explore your interests and passions, trying out subjects from a range of different areas. In your second and third years, you’ll delve deeper while also choosing electives and minors that broaden your skills and knowledge. Studying online offers you the flexibility to complete the degree from wherever you’re based. Throughout your degree, you’ll be well supported by La Trobe’s passionate and committed academics, who are experts in their fields. Many of La Trobe’s online subjects in Humanities and Social Sciences also give you the opportunity to log in to live sessions and engage directly with academics and your fellow students in real time.Gain real-world experience and build valuable connections that will shape your career. Take on an industry placement at organisations like SBS Radio, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre or the United Nations Association of Australia or travel overseas for an international sustainability experience.* Many of our exchange programs are financially supported.The world is waiting for you. Step into it. You’ll learn:<ul><li>Critical thinking<ul><li>Delve into complex problems. Experts say critical thinking will be a highly valued skill in the workforce of tomorrow.**</li></ul></li><li>Emotional intelligence<ul><li>Understand what drives our decisions. Learn how to connect to others with emotion and intelligence.</li></ul></li><li>Creativity<ul><li>Learn how to see new possibilities and turn them into reality.</li></ul></li><li>Communication<ul><li>﻿Learn how to connect, communicate and collaborate with your University peers and future colleagues.</li></ul></li></ul>*Please note: overseas programs may be impacted by travel restrictions.**Forbes, 2019, The 10 Vital Skills You Will Need For The Future Of Work; PwC, 2020, 10 skills you need for future employment

A flexible arts degree offering a large selection of humanities and social sciences majors. Mix it up with minors and electives in business, health, and science. Develop critical thinking, emotional intelligence, creativity, and communication skills.

Bachelor of Arts

Diplomacy, Leadership And Communication

War and Peace: Introduction to Conflict Analysis and Peacebuilding

Political Theory

Diversity Democracy Dissent

Using examples from both global studies and domestic politics, this subject examines contemporary ideas and theories about diplomacy, activism, negotiation, leadership and communication in politics and policy-making to equip you with the skills to pursue a range of career avenues. Through a series of action-oriented readings, practical seminars and workshops, you will analyse and discuss different traditions, behaviours and practices in the field of politics. You will be encouraged to reflect upon what you have learned about politics throughout their degree, consolidate their knowledge and skills, and explore their practical applications. The modules in this subject are designed to help you develop real-world skills including include political leadership, political communication (written and visual), diplomacy and negotiation, and activism. You will be assessed over a variety of tasks including the production of a piece of written political communication, a short piece of political analysis, personal reflections and the production of a political campaign.This is a level 3 subject. Please consider the subject pre-requisites before enrolling. This subject includes live sessions with the expectation of student attendance and participation.

War is a primary challenge to international security, peace, and the realisation of human rights. Conflict resolution and peacebuilding have been used to respond to conflicts both between and within states. In this subject we examine the nature and dynamics of political violence paying attention to armed conflict between and within states and structural violence caused by inequality, colonisation, and environmental degradation. This subject also introduces students to the main approaches to conflict resolution and peacebuilding including peace enforcement, state-building, transitional justice, and civil society advocacy. We look at the international, regional, and domestic mechanisms of resolving conflict and account for the perspectives of women, youth, and Indigenous people. Students will learn how to analyse the dimensions of conflict, conduct a conflict assessment, and understand the regional, international, economic, and social dynamics of wars. They will also learn to envision practices of conflict resolution and peacebuilding in relation to a conflict of their choosing. This is a level 2 subject. Please consider the subject pre-requisites before enrolling. This subject includes live sessions with the expectation of student attendance and participation.

This subject provides an advanced introduction to some of the most important values, concepts, and theories that have defined political philosophy since the second world war. You will begin by considering how influential political philosophers have historically understood their tasks and methods. You will then analyse how political philosophers responded to several key social problems of the postwar period, including the rise of the civil rights and social movements, conscientious objection during the Vietnam War, the justification of civil disobedience, and the existence of unjust institutions derived from slavery. We will then turn to more recent political philosophy, which has tackled social problems in the last two centuries, including the distribution of punishment by police and the courts, the problem of uncivil disobedience and envious rioting, demands for justice across gender diversity, changing structures of family life, and ecological collapse. By engaging with the work of political philosophers who have tackled various social problems in their own times, you will be encouraged to consider how new social problems might also demand new thinking. This subject will help you further your understanding of the relationship between politics, philosophy, and economics (PPE), clarify your own thinking on contemporary political issues, and sharpen your capacity to advance and evaluate arguments.This is a level 3 subject. This subject includes live sessions with the expectation of student attendance and participation.

This subject measures the ideal of democracy against its capacity to deal with the diversity of the people. You will lstudy how different identities based on class, gender, sexuality, race (among others) articulate, negotiate and contest their place and (mis)representation in democratic life. You will study the heritage of the concept of democracy in relation to its concrete manifestations in nation states, and compare how the democratic ideal of living together in a political community is debated in various contexts. Topics include: sovereignty and Indigenous politics; free speech, censorship and political correctness; the gendered, sexualised and racialized character of culture wars and social change; religious expression and secularism; political activism, civil disobedience and violence; law and justice; and discourses of human rights. Texts include legal documents, petitions, government papers, propaganda, various media, and academic writings.This is a level 3 subject. Please consider the subject pre-requisites before enrolling. This subject includes live sessions with the expectation of student attendance and participation.

Climate change politics encompasses a web of complex and inter-related transnational processes that impact on all aspects of global affairs. POL3IPC is an asynchronous online subject (i.e. there are no scheduled classes) in which students are led through an iterative weekly journey examining international climate politics across numerous different International Relations issue domains.A range of perspectives on climate governance and justice are represented in the POL3IPC material. The first half of the subject examines international governance of climate change mitigation and adaptation, focusing on international legal regimes, the global economy and post-carbon transitions, climate security, geoengineering governance, and sea level rise and state sovereignty. The second half of the subject examines the international justice dimensions of climate change, focusing on economic, gender and inter-generational justice, First Nations Peoples and climate governance, eco-centric governance models, and the global climate movement.While POL3IPC focuses on the international level specifically, students are encouraged to see climate change as ultimately about them, their place in the world, and their capacity to exercise empowered agency in global climate politics.

International Politics of Climate Change

This subject aims to introduce you to some of the most interesting and important ideas and debates in modern politics. Covering a wide range of topics and engaging with the work of leading political thinkers (past and present), the subject examines topics such as individual freedom and the limits to state authority, freedom of speech and its limits, whether democracy is the best form of government, whether inequality in the distribution of resources is unjust, how ideas about gender and race have shaped modern politics, and what obligations humans have towards non-human animals. In addressing these questions we examine major ideologies such as liberalism, neo-liberalism, conservatism, socialism, green ideology, and fascism; and central concepts and values such as democracy, equality, social justice, individual liberty, and the social contract. By the end of the subject, you should have a strong understanding of the foundational debates shaping modern politics, the ability to identify how different ideological traditions have responded to these debates, and the ability to analyse and evaluate the major arguments put forward. This is a level 2 subject. The subject includes a pre-recorded lecture each week along with a synchronous (i.e. &quot;live&quot;) tutorial with the expectation of student attendance and participation.

Political Ideas and Ideologies

This subject introduces you to the disciplines of politics, philosophy, and economics (PPE). Develop your knowledge of political institutions and their history. Learn how influential theories think philosophically about justice. Advance your economic understanding of how incentives affect human behaviour. And then apply perspectives from each PPE discipline to analyse topics: trade, economic inequality, environmental degradation, and concepts from educational opportunity. You will then see how each discipline can illuminate very different aspects of a particular problem. You will use PPE perspectives to analyse markets, inequality, environmental degradation, educational opportunity, and discrimination problem, with useful implications for policy-making. This is a core subject for students in La Trobe&#39;s Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE), but it is also open and accessible to any student seeking an introduction to these three disciplines, politics, philosophy, and economics) and their intersecting application to real-world challenges. This is a level 1 subject. This subject includes live sessions with the expectation of student attendance and participation.

Politics, Philosophy and Economics

This subject provides a systematic comparative analysis of processes of political change in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Myanmar. In particular, we study to what extent democratic rules and procedures have emerged in these countries since they were formed as modern nation-states. Key issues that will be examined in this subject include constitutional and electoral change, party and party system institutionalisation, the role of the military in politics, separatist and communal conflicts, the nexus between religion and politics as well as various policy challenges including environmental and public health issues.This is a level 3 subject. Please consider the subject pre-requisites before enrolling. This subject includes live sessions with the expectation of student attendance and participation.

Southeast Asian Politics: Change and Conflict

The Middle East region has been an epicentre of global and regional power rivalries with profound consequences for the peoples of the region, global politics, and security. This subject focuses on the intersection of global and regional politics to introduce you to the historical as well as contemporary forces that shape the contemporary politics of the region. It begins with an introduction to the expansion of imperialism and the modern state system in the region at the end of the First World War and the rise of major ideological forces such as nationalism and political Islam. It then investigates the drivers of contemporary politics and (in)security in the region, such as policies of Western powers, including the United States, regional rivalries between Iran and Saudi Arabia, militant jihadist movements, and the impact of the 2011-2013 Arab Spring protest movements across the region. Throughout the subject, you will be encouraged to critically engage in debates about democracy, authoritarianism, social movements, and human rights.This is a level 3 subject. Please consider the subject pre-requisites before enrolling. This subject includes live sessions with the expectation of student attendance and participation.

Politics In Our Time (Contemporary Middle East Politics)

This level 3 (i.e. third year) subject focuses on the political dynamics of contemporary Australian public policy, examining the major forces driving policy in a range of different areas, and exploring what this reveals about power in Australia. The subject begins by introducing students to the major theoretical perspectives on power and policy-making, along with the historical and structural factors that shape government in Australia. It then focuses in depth on a selection of policy issues that have been central to the political agenda in recent years, including topics such as inequality, welfare policy, voluntary euthanasia, industrial relations, environmental policy and media regulation. The aim is to illuminate the power dynamics that are central to understanding politics in Australia, and to give students a deeper understanding of contemporary policy debates. This subject is particularly recommended for students who are planning a career in the media, in government, or in NGOs, and for students who wish to research an Australian topic in their Honours year. The teaching format involves a pre-recorded lecture each week along with a synchronous (i.e. &quot;live&quot;) tutorial at which attendance is recommended.

Politics, Power and Public Policy

La Trobe University Politics Short courses | Open Universities Australia

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