Humanities and culture courses
Humanities and culture courses. We don’t just teach, we inspire.
Exploring the depths of culture, philosophy and history has never been so accessible. Learn from experts in the field and create an everlasting bond with some of the world’s most impactful reading material. Our comprehensive humanities and culture courses offered at the University of Sydney provide students with unending knowledge that touches our roots while building towards the future.
Don’t be intimidated by our knowledgeable faculty – they know their stuff but they also understand that everyone starts somewhere, which is why we welcome inquiring minds without prejudice. Step up to unleash your inner scholar and get energised by mind-stimulating discourse amongst like-minded peers. Meet friends, form opinions and come out of it with a cultural experience you won’t soon forget!
Sign up now for your very own inspiring experience. We offer groundbreaking opportunities to unlock your intellectual potential, turning everyday people into more thoughtful citizens able to appreciate their pasts and consider their futures more deeply. So say farewell to mundane education and open your world through humanities and culture today!
Featured courses
Meet your facilitators
Craig Barker
Dr Craig Barker is an archaeologist and the Head of Public Engagement and Education for the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney. This includes the Nicholson Collection which houses...
Brian Brennan
Brian Brennan hold a Master’s degree with honours in Classical Studies and a Ph.D in Ancient History. He has specialised in the religious and cultural history of the Later Roman World,...
Robert Gay
After gaining a BA, Dip. Ed. from the University of Sydney, Robert trained as a lyric baritone in London and Munich before turning to the field of music education. He has taught music history...
Mark Tredinnick
Mark Tredinnick, winner of the Montreal Poetry Prize (2011) and the Cardiff Poetry Prize (2012), is the author of The Blue Plateau, Fire Diary, and nine other acclaimed works of poetry and prose....
Featured Articles
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History. See the future. It’s in the past. The town of Pompeii, destroyed in AD79 by an eruption of Vesuvius, is one of the best preserved and best known of Roman sites, but also one of the most misrepresented. Popular accounts of the last days of Pompeii stress the sensational rather than the factual, but this study day will take a critical stance in the interpretation of the sometimes limited evidence. During the course, we will examine the scientific studies of the eruption and... View History Course: A Day in Pompeii.
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History. See the future. It’s in the past. It was at dusk on 15th October 1764 when Edward Gibbon, sitting amidst the ruins on the Capitoline Hill at Rome, first conceived the idea of writing about the decline and fall of the city. His classic work which emphasised the negative effects of autocracy, barbarism and religion, has long dominated views of the Roman Empire. More recently, historians have questioned Gibbon’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ periods, or suggested other socio-economic... View History Course: The Decline of the Roman Empire.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. Aristotle was the polymath of the Ancient world he wrote on: ethics, politics, mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, anatomy, biology, cosmology, poetry, drama, rhetoric. The enduring nature of his profound thought and fundamental insights into ethics, politic and the arts makes his philosophy as relevant now as it has been throughout Western history. This course will provide an in-depth study of all of... View Philosophy Course: Aristotle - Ancient Wisdom.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. What is history? A possible definition is: History is change over time. But what kind of change are we talking about? Given that history is everything that has happened, what kind of selection processes are used to ‘make history’? Aristotle believes that what is important is not “the thing which has happened, but rather what might have happened…and may happen again”. In other words, history must... View Philosophy of History Course: Herodotus to The History Channel.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. In this course, we will consider the literature of Dante and the role of sex and sin in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1387–1400). Together, we will enter into the strange world of the medieval mind, walking with angels and beasts. We will also consider the contribution of Islamic and Jewish philosophy; much of the science done in the Middle Ages comes from non-Christian thinkers. In the area of political... View Philosophy Course: The Late Middle Ages and Renaissance.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. The laws of a society embody both its highest ideals and its worst nightmares. This philosophy of law course examines the origins of law and why humans invent laws for themselves. Jurisprudence is the area of philosophy interested in the study of the fundamental concepts underpinning legal systems. We will compare different cultural and historical systems of law, engage in lively discussions on issues... View Philosophy of Law Course: Jurisprudence.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. Storytelling belongs to the history of all humans. This course will explore why we love fiction; the elements which make up a ‘story’; and how the modern novel was invented and developed throughout history. We will begin by discussing the features which constitute a ‘novel’, and the history of it's emergence from other forms of narrative. We will also discuss issues such as: para text and framing devices;... View Philosophy of Fiction Course: The Novel.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. Aims This course aims to provide a broad introduction to the most important issues of our age, through the works of some of the best contemporary philosophers and thinkers. We will cover a range of contemporary issues including the latest works on ecology, genetics, religion, law, language, science and the human condition. Some of the philosophers and their works we will discuss include Timothy Morton’s... View Philosophy in the 21st Century Course: Ten Great Contemporary Thinkers.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. This introductory course crosses many fields including sociology, cultural theory, linguistics, ethnography, psychology, and evolutionary theory. Anthropology, though its own distinctive field and its unique history, has drawn from and contributed back to many of these areas. During this course, we will take a cultural/historical approach to track the philosophical ideas which underpin anthropology, from... View Philosophy of Anthropology Course.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. What is consciousness and how is it produced by the brain? This course provides an introduction to the philosophical issue of consciousness. We will discuss topics including: the current state of knowledge on what consciousness is; how it functions to produce the ‘reality’ of ourselves; and how it mediates our understanding of the world around us. We will also discuss the impact of quantum theory on... View Philosophy Course: Philosophy of Consciousness.