School: Kurongkurl Katitjin

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    BlaK Matters: Indigenous Sci-fi and Futurisms, Ancient Knowledge for an Exciting Future
  • Unit Code

    IAS2340
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    1
  • Credit Points

    15
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
    Online
  • Unit Coordinator

    Ms Sian BENNETT

Description

This unit is an exciting opportunity to engage in a unique approach to issues of Aboriginal identity, culture and representation. Drawing on contemporary novels, comics, and film, you are invited to explore the world of Indigenous Futurism and Science Fiction; a place where histories are re-imagined and the limitations of the real world are supplanted by possibilities expressed through Aboriginal voices and perspectives. Indigenous futurism and science fiction are relatively new literary and visual-media genres, yet the ideas underpinning them have been present for thousands of years. This unit explores ancient ways of knowing and being in a contemporary frame.

Prerequisite Rule

Students must have achieved at least 60 credit points.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Apply an understanding of settler colonialism as a political structure and explore how it manifests in popular culture and media (mass and social).
  2. Identify and develop respectful integration of Indigenous worldviews, knowledge of intersectionality and its importance in a multicultural society expressed through sci-fi/speculative fiction and futurisms.
  3. Apply knowledge and understanding of the ways in which Indigenous people are already creating a decolonised Australia through science fiction and futurism sci-fi, speculative fiction and futurisms.
  4. Identify the ways in which Indigenous contributions expand our potential for imagining relationships between individuals, communities and the natural world now and into the future.

Unit Content

  1. Introduction to Science fiction and its expressions: Perspectives/origins.
  2. What is Indigenous sci-fi?
  3. Decolonising the Other.
  4. Intersectional perspectives.
  5. Multiple Indigeneities.
  6. Indigenous futurism recurring themes.

Learning Experience

ON-CAMPUS

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECU's LMS

JoondalupMount LawleySouth West (Bunbury)
Semester 1Not Offered13 x 3 hour seminarNot Offered

For more information see the Semester Timetable

ONLINE

Students will engage in learning experiences via ECU’s LMS as well as additional ECU learning technologies

Additional Learning Experience Information

This unit will be dealing with materials and resources produced by Indigenous peoples. It will be taught within Kurongkurl Katitjin Centre so there will be access to culturally appropriate materials and engagement with Aboriginal staff. We will be working in an interactive and dynamic learning environment by using the seminar format and a focus on small group work. Our planning recognises the future provisions of the new Perth campus. Generic skill development will include critical and creative thinking, cross cultural competency and reflexivity, global perspectives and enhancing digital literacy.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
JournalReflective Journal40%
PortfolioCuration Portfolio60%
ONLINE
TypeDescriptionValue
JournalReflective Journal40%
PortfolioCuration Portfolio60%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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