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

Be prepared for a future career as an innovator, communicator and creator. With our innovative majors you can tailor your degree to both your professional pursuits and your personal interests, creating a unique skill set that could help you secure your dream job.
You will gain the understanding, insight and skill to find and communicate creative solutions to important world issues. You will develop advanced writing and presentation skills as well as research and project management skills. You will also learn about societies and cultures, past and present.
You will have the option to develop specialist expertise in contemporary fields such as journalism and public relations, or more traditional fields such as sociology, history and literary studies to name some.

Develop critical thinking, writing, and research skills in demand across all industries. You can follow your passion with majors and electives that interest you. Develop connections through peer learning, networking, and work experience.

Bachelor of Arts

Themes in World History 1300-1800

Cross-Cultural World History

A History of War

Cinema History

Australia and the World

Histories of Sexuality

A History of Terrorism and Political Violence

The Body in History

A History of Crime and Punishment

This subject examines the incidence of crime, the development of the law and criminal justice processes in response to crime, and the means of punishment to deal with crime. Covering the period from the Middle Ages to the end of the nineteenth century, the focus will be mainly on Europe and the ways in which crime impacted on communities, how the meaning of criminality shifted over time, and the agencies for change in dealing with criminals.

Plunge into the history of crime, law and criminal justice. Dissect how attitudes to crime have shifted over the centuries. Follow the twists and turns of the witch-hunts in the Middle Ages. Look at executions in the eighteenth century and identification of criminals in the nineteenth century. 

Cross-Cultural World History investigates the experience of colonisation from both sides of contact (c.1700-1950) and in light of cross-cultural exchanges involving gender and sexuality, trade, travel narratives, conflict and law, and intercultural exchanges between coloniser and colonised. It will cover a range of historical case studies and approaches to cross-cultural contact in world history including in the New World, Australasia and the Pacific and North America, and through applying recent theories of &#39;contact&#39;, space and bodies; the transnational circulation of ideas, people and things; and the place of intercultural exchange in the broader context of colonial violence.

Step into the pages of history to discover how colonisation took place through exchanges involving gender, sexuality, trade, travel, conflict and law. Explore the circulation of ideas and people across the globe and consider colonial violence.

For millennia humans have waged war and come to understand themselves and others through the experience of war. This subject explores the different ways that we can understand what war means â€“ how it has changed across time, what are the rights and wrongs of war, who are its victims, and how it has shaped the modern world. Understanding this history enables us to think more clearly about how war has shaped the modern world, and how the changing nature of war remains central to humanity&#39;s hopes for the future.

Scour the history books to see how war is narrated and what it says about recording history. Delve into the ethical questions about war. Pursue a greater understanding of how it has shaped our world. Be on the lookout for war analysis’ recurring themes.

This subject focuses on the history of the body since the mid eighteenth century. We will look at why physical and mental health have been the concerns of governments, how different populations have been identified as &#39;fit&#39; or unfit&#39;, and the way in which gender, sexuality and &#39;race&#39; have shaped public understandings of a variety of bodies and subjects. The subject covers diverse representations of &#39;the body&#39; as an ideal and its relationship to actual bodies in modern history, from public health to sex education and psychiatry, and from femininity to sanitation.

Look back at the attitudes and theories people have held about the body throughout recent history. Identify shifting attitudes to body health and beauty. Expose how attitudes have been shaped by considerations like gender, race and sexuality.

During the course of 500 years between 1300 and 1800 (CE), the peoples of the world came into ever closer contact with one another. Contact led to sustained engagements in commerce, war, empire, and colonisation. The effects of these complex patterns of interaction across the globe in this period gave rise to new ways of seeing the world, new ways of interpreting nature, and new ways of understanding its human inhabitants. This course will introduce you to the study of world history by focussing on salient themes in the emergence of the some of the modern world. Themes on which we will focus include: (1) Polities: tribes, nations, states and empires; (2) Trade and world history; (3) The crucible of war; (4) A world of disease; (5) The natural world; (6) Global Visions or World civilization?

Embark on a journey through time when human connection gained traction – through commerce, war, empire and colonisation. Look at how this history encouraged new ways of thinking and seeing the world. Discover the emergence of the modern world.

Previously titled: &#39;Australia and the World World: 1788 to Present&#39;This course will introduce students to the key political, social and cultural events, people, and issues that helped shape Australian history. The changes and continuities in Australian history will be explored, allowing students to develop an ability to understand and critique different perspectives on the history of Australia. This course will help students to conceptualise as well as analyse the origins, narrative and impact of events in Australian history.

Please note: This subject was previously known as &#39;History of Sex and Sexuality&#39;Sexuality saturates modern life. Our sexual and gender identities signal our selfhood to others and define who we are, whether that&#39;s straight, queer, trans or gender diverse, or one of many other possibilities. Sex is everywhere, from the sheets to the streets, to the internet. How we present ourselves, who we are intimate with, what we do and how often we do it is the subject of commentary, intervention, and regulation. But who has determined what&#39;s &#39;unnatural&#39; and what&#39;s &#39;normal and when? What have historical actors, experts and institutions said in the past about sex? And have ordinary people always followed the rules?This unit explores histories of sex and sexuality from antiquity to the present. Taking a chronological approach to private practices and erotic lives, we will investigate diverse topics, including prostitution, marriage, crossdressing, birth control, war, chastity, queer lives and the internet to identify historical change and continuity. The course focuses on practices, identities and attitudes in Europe, the US, and Australia to consider how gender, class and ethnicity inflect public narratives and intimate lives. Using primary sources and historical objects, you will investigate the meanings people and institutions attach to desire, bodies, and sexuality at different times and places and interrogate our contemporary sexual lives and their possibilities.

Turn the pages of time in the history of sex and sexuality. Cover sexology, romantic friendships, prophylaxis and queer lives – spanning from ancient times through to today. Explore how gender, class and ethnicity comes into play in intimacy.

For many, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on 11 September 2001 are defining moments in history. These attacks were undeniably seminal events in contemporary history, and we find commentators and scholars talk in terms of &quot;before&quot; and &quot;after&quot; 9/11. Not surprisingly, terrorism is a topic that seemingly remains ever-present in our collective minds. As the authors of Terrorism: A Critical Introduction state: &quot;In the twenty-first century, terrorism, it seems, is everywhere. It is in the headlines and stories of our newspapers, websites and nightly television news, and in the plotlines and characters of films, TV programmes and plays we watch, and the thriller novels and comics we read&quot; (R. Jackson et.al., 2011: p. 1).It is, of course, important to place contemporary terrorism in historical context, to understand how political violence has manifested itself throughout history, what impact it had on communities and how societies dealt with the threat. By looking at the history of terrorism, this subject will explore the broad &amp; shifting contours of political violence from ancient times through to the rise of modern-day Jihadist terrorism. The subject will introduce students to moments of terrorism within a broad chronological and geographical framework. It will challenge students to consider the definition of terrorism and the notion of &#39;one person&#39;s terrorist is another person&#39;s freedom fighter&#39;, while exploring the key questions of how, why and with what consequences terrorism has been constructed.

View defining moments of terror through an historical lens. Going as far back as the Ancient and Medieval Worlds, you’ll observe political violence through history, reflecting on the social shifts in perspectives and interpretations of terrorism.

Please note:  This subject was previously known as Screen History and Research.This course offers a broad introduction to global cinema history from the invention of film to the present, with a focus on key film movements, representative national cinemas, and significant examples of film as an art, entertainment, historical document, political intervention, and social commentary.

Griffith University

Previously titled: 'Australia and the World World: 1788 to Present'

This course will introduce students to the key political, social and cultural events, people, and issues that helped shape Australian history. The changes and continuities in Australian history will be explored, allowing students to develop an ability to understand and critique different perspectives on the history of Australia. This course will help students to conceptualise as well as analyse the origins, narrative and impact of events in Australian history.

Please note:  This subject was previously known as Screen History and Research.

This course offers a broad introduction to global cinema history from the invention of film to the present, with a focus on key film movements, representative national cinemas, and significant examples of film as an art, entertainment, historical document, political intervention, and social commentary.  

Course results for Griffith University Undergraduate History Subjects

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