English

This course explores the development and evolution of popular culture in Singapore from the colonial period to the present day. Students learn diverse topics including Singapore's changing religious landscape, wedding and death rituals, as well as varied forms of popular entertainment from street opera, amusement parks to radio and cinema. Students gain a sensitivity to change and continuities within historical contexts, better understand Singapore’s rich cultural heritage and improve skills in critical thinking, writing and presentation.

When studying organizations, different social science disciplines do not merely define this concept, they propose theories about why organizations exist, how they operate, how they can be structured, how they develop, how they interact with their external environment, and how they innovate. Insights into different organization theories are thus crucial for the understanding of a wide array of social science theories that build on the notion of organizations. The first part of this course examines seminal theories concerning different facets of organizations: stakeholders and ethics, structure and culture, strategy and relation to the external environment, and lifecycle and change. Near the end of the course, students review how organizations are shaped by organizational politics and cognitive biases in decision-making and how platforms are changing the organizational landscape. Students use case studies to analyze an existing organization using the theories learned in the course. 

The course provides a basis for understanding development in childhood and adolescence from a biopsychosocial perspective. The course focuses on interactions and associations between children’s genetic dispositions, neurocognitive, and psychological factors. Psychosocial development is understood as a complex interplay between the individual and the environment. Of particular interests is the focus on early adversity, family risks, and social relationship. The syllabus and lectures address topics such as contextualized and dynamic developmental models, gene x environment interactions, risk and resilience factors for emerging mental health problems, social influences on brain and psychological development, and development of risk-taking. A general theme through the course is on developmental mechanisms and transactional processes.

This course examines the question of ethics, particularly integrity, in the exercise of power by elected officials. It raises the central question of whether it is ever right to do wrong in politics; and if so, to what end. The course is divided into three parts. Drawing on selected texts of political philosophy and political science, it first explores the broad confines of morality, ethics, and integrity in politics; and subsequently focuses on the question of lying. The final part of the course examines integrity through empirical cases in contemporary politics. Overall, the course reflects on what conduct is realistically expected from those in government, and on the seemingly inevitable tension and thin line between using power to serve oneself and using power to serve the common good.

This course examines the fundamental techniques of some significant approaches within Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the solution of difficult problems. In particular, the course discusses local research techniques in a space of solutions, systems with constraints, soft constraints, planning techniques, representation and manipulation of knowledge with and without uncertainty, decision theory, reasoning techniques with preferences, and aggregation of preferences in a multi-agent context. The structure and the topics of the course is as follows: problem resolution, and local search algorithms; constraint-based systems and soft constraints; preference reasoning and preference aggregation in multi-agent systems; decision theory; treatment of uncertainty and probabilistic reasoning; planning; and artificial intelligence in society. The course recommends students have basic knowledge of programming and algorithms as a prerequisite.

Consumption has come to dominate our lives, is driving economies, yet also endangering the future of our planet. This course asks questions about consumption from multiple perspectives, such as how did consumption assume its prominent place, how do economists rationalize consumption, how do companies use behavioral models to craft marketing strategies, whether consumption is good or bad for society or the individual, or whether consumers need to be protected.