The Culture, Heritage and Memory – Online Showcase presents student-created posters and short videos from the ANU courses HUMN8019 and HUMN8033.
These works highlight how students move through the cycle of Inform → Visit → Reflect → Create, using AI-supported research, field-based learning, and critical reflection to produce public-facing creative outputs.
This page is designed as a public platform for:
- Student exchange – seeing how peers interpret complex ethical, political, and environmental questions.
- Future student learning – offering concrete examples of what creative, research-led assessment can look like.
- Broader ANU community engagement – showcasing innovative teaching practice and authentic learning outcomes in the Humanities.
About the Project
Creative, Research-Led Teaching
In HUMN8019 and HUMN8033, students begin with AI-supported research and close reading of scholarly literature, identifying debates, tensions, and gaps. They then test and extend this knowledge through site visits, embodied fieldwork, and reflective writing.
The final step in the learning cycle is to translate insights into creative communication artefacts – posters and short videos – aimed at a broader public audience.
The Inform → Visit → Reflect → Create Cycle
- Inform – Students use AI tools and academic research to map the key issues and questions.
- Visit – Students engage with places, communities, and materials through field-based learning.
- Reflect – Students critically reflect on what they have seen, felt, and learned.
- Create – Students produce posters and videos that communicate their findings to non-specialist audiences.
This approach foregrounds:
- Research-led and inquiry-based learning
- Authentic, work-integrated learning
- Ethical and responsible engagement with technology
Gallery – Posters
The poster gallery showcases how students distil complex research and field observations into concise, visual communication. These posters are designed for public audiences and could be displayed in exhibitions, foyers, or online campaigns.2025 HUMN8019 Posters2025 HUMN8033 Posters
Gallery – Short Videos
The video gallery features short, student-produced videos that combine narrative, imagery, and sound to explore ethical, political, and environmental issues. Students are encouraged to experiment with voice, pacing, and visual storytelling while remaining grounded in research.
For Students
Thinking of taking HUMN8019 or HUMN8033?
This showcase offers a glimpse of what you might create:
- Work with real-world issues and sites
- Use AI critically as a research assistant, not a replacement for your thinking
- Develop creative outputs that can live beyond the classroom
- Join a community of practice around creative, research-led Humanities learning
Educators interested in adapting similar approaches are welcome to draw inspiration from the project structure and student outputs, with appropriate acknowledgement.
About Course Convener
Yujie Zhu is a researcher and educator who brings a critical, interdisciplinary, and future-oriented lens to the study of heritage, memory, and social transformation. Trained in anthropology, with a PhD from Heidelberg University, Germany, his work investigates how heritage and narratives of the past are constructed, contested, and mobilised to shape governance, identity, and state–society relations across diverse cultural, political, and spatial contexts.
His research focuses on the politics of heritage in East Asia, with particular attention to memory politics, conflict and reconciliation, religious spaces, and the political economy of tourism. His broader aim is to reconceptualise heritage as a field of critical inquiry and ethical engagement—one that links local practices with global debates and connects past injustices with future possibilities.
Yujie is the author of five books, co-editor of four edited volumes and four special issues, and has published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and policy reports.
Yujie’s teaching, recognised with the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence, is distinguished by its integration of Indigenous knowledge and Country-led ethics, developed with First Nations experts and the National Museum of Australia.
