English

Building upon the basis of Japanese 2, this course develops ability to communicate and expands the repertoire of daily topics and situations. Complex structures such as noun modification, transitive/intransitive verb sentences and conditional forms are introduced. Approximately 140 kanji are introduced. With this knowledge of characters, students will be able to understand and write simple and short essays.

This course addresses philosophical and methodological questions relevant to criticism of the arts, especially the question of value and evaluation. It discusses the issues regarding interpretation of artworks, examining theories of interpretation with examples of actual artworks. It also examines various aspects of art's value including aesthetic value, cognitive value, moral value, etc. It then moves on to the issue of applying standards of evaluation to some controversial cases found in the area such as erotic art, public art and popular art. Finally, some meta-critical issues are addressed.

This course examines the origins of the environmental crisis and develop alternative models of thinking and acting. It covers key philosophical and ecological concepts (e.g., nature, culture, society, responsibility, biodiversity, sustainability), explores the possibility of an ethics beyond the human, and considers new conceptions of agency, responsibility and multi-species justice.

This course covers the care and maintenance of clothing. Topics include the principle of adhesion of contaminants and textile fibers; critical factors in removing contaminants (surfactants, mechanical removal, solvent, chemical degradation, etc.); care and maintenance of protective textiles; and environmental impact during the clothing maintenance process. 

In an age where cross cultural interactions and global traffics are frequent, Hong Kong cinema cannot be regarded merely as local cinema. It is an interesting site where complex global processes can be traced. Flows of capital, film personnel, technologies, ideas and creativity are vibrantly circulating inside and outside the cultural industry of film making, resulting in phenomena such as transnational co-productions and cross-cultural co-operations. These dynamic processes are inflected in characterization, plot development and space time configurations on Hong Kong screens. This course explores the local-global interactions from a variety of approaches. With a selection of Hong Kong films, the course provides understanding of the two way relationship between the local, popular entertainment and global film scene by investigating the major questions regarding globalizations. Film critics, scholars and filmmakers conduct workshops and give guest lectures. Assessment: video test, group presentation with report, participation.

This course is designed to survey the basic content and methodology of contemporary psychology. While psychology as a scientific and humanistic enterprise is the underlying theme of the course, the field of psychology is approached so that is serves as the solution to many problems facing society at large.

The course addresses the following topics:

• Psychology as a discipline 
• Knowing the world: Sensation and perception 1 (Morishima)
• Learning - classical conditioning, operant conditioning (Morishima)
• Making sense of the world: Basic cognitive processes - memory (Morishima)
• Making sense of the world: Higher-level cognitive processes concept formation, categorization, knowledge representation, decision making, reasoning, creativity, etc. (Chan)
•  Biological bases of behavior: Basic structure and function of the human nervous system, mind/body problem, etc. (Chan)
• Motivation & Emotion (Smith)
• Development (Smith)
• Social Psychology (Smith)
• Health & Clinical psychology (Chan)

This course covers the chemistry of major food components such as water, lipid, carbohydrate, and protein including food enzymes. The basic functions of these components are also be introduced. Some chemical reactions involving these molecules with relation to food processing and storage are discussed. In addition, methods of chemical modification to change the chemical and physical properties of the food components are also presented. Basic laboratory techniques used in food chemistry laboratory will also be introduced.

This course begins by prompting students to reflect on what happiness means to them. What is happiness? What is it for? Does it matter? How can we measure it? The course explores a variety of ‘theories’ of happiness, asking students to think about what happiness means to them in their lives and communities. Through discussions, research, and reflection students are exposed to different interpretations and understandings of happiness. 

This course presents international trade theory and trade policy practices. Relevant international trade theories are discussed together with the hypothesized consequences and empirical support. The course examines both tariff and non-tariff trade policy measures. In the latter, both traditional (e.g. quota, local content requirements) and new forms (sanitary and phyto-sanitary, technical requirement) of non-tariff measures are covered. The course also discusses free trade agreements and international production sharing, and their impacts.

This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to international development discourses with a focus on water and development issues. Attention is given to outlining conceptual frameworks addressing the relevant underlying ecological, political, economic, and sociological principles in evaluating and managing water issues.