Sydney: Colonization, Health, and the Environment

Undergraduate / Graduate

Colonial Sydney was both a site of British imperial experimentation and a crucial node in Pacific World networks of trade, migration, and disease transmission. Focusing on the period between the First Fleet's arrival in 1788 and Australian Federation in 1901, this September term course examines how encounters among Aboriginal Australians, British convicts, colonial officials, and East Asian and Pacific Island immigrants altered the social, environmental, and urban fabric of Sydney. What does Sydney's built environment tell us about the city's colonial past? What sociocultural, economic, and physical forces transformed Sydney from the traditional lands of the Eora people into Britain's most distant colonial outpost? How did the global importation and exploitation of people, plants, animals, and diseases reshape both the natural environment and human experience in this thriving Pacific seaport? What tensions emerged as colonial authorities sought to impose control over unfamiliar landscapes and diverse populations while pursuing broader imperial strategies? Students will explore such questions and develop essential skills in historical analysis and place-based learning through a series of in-class lectures, readings, and guided visits to many of Sydney's museums, heritage sites, and cultural landmarks. Excursions throughout Sydney and its surroundings will illuminate how colonial cities often developed as crucibles of contestation, environmental change, and imperial governance.