2007 Handbooks

"Family Values" are increasingly invoked in Australia and other Western nations as the 21st century unfolds in a global response to the US-led War on Terrorism. The new mood of "fear and fundamentalism" carries with it shifts in the relations between the sexes, the races, the religions, the classes, the generations, etc, deepening their effects of division and domination and compounding them (as in the case of the recent ethnic gang rapes" in Sydney). Whilst the rhetoric of "family values" appears to want us to return to an earlier era in our thinking and our social structures, such a transformation of the world is taking place that is impossible to get back to the way things were. It is imperative to explore the changed landscapes of our political life, our popular culture, our experience of home and work etc, in order to grasp these changes in our Australian context. This unit will explore the rhetoric of "family values" across a range of fields in contemporary Australian culture.