English

This dynamic, general undergraduate course leverages the captivating power of cinema to explore world religious civilizations, life philosophies, and a spectrum of ethical and moral issues. "Film, Faith, and Moral" is designed to enhance students' understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures, offering insights into the similarities and differences among various world religions and fostering a deep respect for religious cultures. 
 
The course delves into major world religions and addresses cross-religious moral and ethical themes, such as the rewards and punishments in the afterlife, the Golden Rule, concepts of rebirth, worldviews, the interplay between digital technology and religion, and the nature of temptation and sin. It also covers repentance, loyalty, forgiveness, altruism, self-salvation, and transcendence. 
 
Utilizing a rich array of films, including documentaries, animations, and feature films, the course broadens students' perspectives on religious and philosophical thinking and their understanding of the interconnections between cinema, literature, and art. An introduction to semiotic theory is also included to enhance students' media literacy and critical thinking skills.

This course introduces the basic human structure and life phenomena to students coming from non-medical backgrounds. The content of each lecture covers basic concepts from anatomy and the associated physiology to clinical diseases and their treatments. 

This course studies the issues in international trade, or any trade in general. It begins with the two concepts that underlie trades between any individuals or groups of individuals, not just international trade: Division of labor and comparative advantage from Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Trade enables the division of labor, which leads to productivity increase and prosperity. The course then proceeds with the empirics and theories that are more specific to trade between countries. Empirically, the course introduces gravity equations and teaches where to obtain important international trade data. The class will be expected to perform simple exercises of using these data either in class or as homework.  Finally, the course also reviews empirical international trade literature. Theoretically, the course introduces simple versions of key models in the modern trade literature. For each theoretical model, empirical motivations are provided. 

This course examines basic properties of metric spaces; openness; closedness; interior; closure; derived set; boundary; compactness; completeness; continuity; connectedness; pathwise connectedness; uniform continuity; uniform convergence; and Banach's fixed point theorem.

The course introduces students to the major theoretical traditions and conceptual frameworks used to make sense of international politics, including relations between states and interstate institutions as well as a range of global political processes. It shows how to use theory to make sense of the complex issues, developments, and events. The key objective of the course is to introduce students to the rich diversity of theoretical approaches - from orthodox to critical - within international relations and to offer them key analytical skills to compare and engage with theories and to use theories in their further research and studies. 

This course examines various collective strategies adopted to selectively know and understand inhumane conduct and consider how publics morally disengage from acts of extreme violence and rationalize inhumane conduct, especially during periods of upheaval social unrest. It asks if social and political under-reactions to widespread evidence of violence, hunger, poverty, or ecological destruction today offer us any insights into the relationship between knowledge of suffering (its production and dissemination), social relations among humans, and propensity to act? Using classical Marxist and Weberian analysis, it will explore how social and affective identification with fellow humanity is routinely blocked. It will also assess the role of narrative in establishing the acceptability and coherence of certain violent realities today. The second part of this course considers occasions when societies choose to engage with traumatic memories of violence. Topics include collective trauma, denial, forgetting, societal guilt, inhumanities, the by-stander society, alienation, and societal learning.

This course examines Buddhism and its art from ancient times to the present. Rather than portraying Buddhist art as a timeless ideal, the class deploys case studies to foreground the dynamics of its development. In particular, it examines how styles, iconographies, and media have been purposefully selected and reconfigured in varying contexts across and beyond Asia. The class also explores contemporary art inspired by Buddhist concepts, and the role of collecting and curatorial practices in shaping the interpretation of Buddhist artifacts.

The course is future oriented and explores the concept of sustainability in the face of global change. It encompasses a wide range of theory and practice, including social, economic, and environmental issues, and links international examples to local context and relevance. The course challenges students to critically reflect on sustainability and current approaches to sustainability.

Understanding the processes involved in the transformation of carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and other major elements in the oceans has been a major interest of oceanographers over the past decade. Marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) plays a vital role in regulating global patterns and cycling of the major elements of seawater. There are a number of biochemical, photochemical and physical transformations that marine DOM can be influenced by, including DOM production, diagenesis and re-mineralization, as well as interactions with trace metals and microbes. Additionally, marine DOM plays important roles at environmental interfaces such as those between land and sea, sediment and water, particle and bulk solution. This course covers both well-established and recently developed concepts on marine DOM relevant to future marine scientists, in particular, those in the fields of chemistry, biogeochemistry and ecology.