ASS203 - Being Human (With the Nonhuman)

Year:

2025 unit information

Enrolment modes:

Trimester 1: Burwood (Melbourne), Waurn Ponds (Geelong), Online, Community Based Delivery (CBD)*

Credit point(s): 1
EFTSL value: 0.125
Prerequisite:

Nil

Corequisite: Nil
Incompatible with: Nil
Study commitment

Students will on average spend 150-hours over the teaching period undertaking the teaching, learning and assessment activities for this unit.

This will include educator guided online learning activities within the unit site.

Scheduled learning activities - campus

1 x 1-hour on-campus lecture per week

1 x 1-hour on-campus seminar per week

Scheduled learning activities - online

1 x 1-hour online lecture per week (recordings provided)

1 x 1-hour online seminar per week

Note:

*Community Based Delivery (CBD): only for students of the National Indigenous Knowledges, Education, Research and Innovation NIKERI Institute (located at the Waurn Ponds campus)

Content

This unit introduces students to the various ways that “being human” is understood and experienced among different groups of people, particularly in their classifications of, and relationships with, nonhumans, such as animals and deities. A framework of what it means to be human often presupposes a certain definition of consciousness. For the most part, this is predicated on the subjective “I” and a corollary understanding of the individual. But is this framework universal? How do people in non-modern societies, for example, convey what it means to be human? This unit explores the multiple ways of “being human” and suggests that one articulation reveals itself through relationships with nonhumans. By examining how nonhumans are included into society – through kinship structures, for example – and the implications on notions of personhood and consciousness, this unit opens up the possibilities of what it means to be human while simultaneously clarifying its scope.

Unit Fee Information

Fees and charges vary depending on the type of fee place you hold, your course, your commencement year, the units you choose to study and their study discipline, and your study load.

Tuition fees increase at the beginning of each calendar year and all fees quoted are in Australian dollars ($AUD). Tuition fees do not include textbooks, computer equipment or software, other equipment or costs such as mandatory checks, travel and stationery.

Estimate your fees

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