Australian Politics 101
Taught by Jason Schulman
Jason Schulman is a life-long learner and wannabe scholar. A native of the great state of New Jersey, he earned his PhD in History at Emory University. When he’s not daydreaming about returning to Australia, where he spent a semester abroad, he’s trying to raise money for student scholarships at NYU.
From 2010-2015, Australia had five Prime Ministers in five years. Like something out of a Shakespearean drama, there were stabs in the back, leadership spills, and double dissolutions. Will things stabilize? There's never been a more exciting time to follow politics Down Under.
This class will give you an overview of the structure, major personalities, and big-ticket issues in Australian politics today. The cast of characters would make a great movie. This is not your average afternoon C-SPAN stuff. Don’t fret if you have zero background on Australia; the country is facing the same big policy issues we are here, including immigration, the rise of populism, and climate change. We’ll investigate how these issues play out in a different national context. And with a new U.S. President, what is the future of the deep U.S.-Australia alliance?
