English

This course explores how the internet has facilitated echo chambers and conspiracy theorist groups such as QAnon, specifically focusing on its effects on the 2016 American presidential election and the elections since. It examines contemporary American politics through the development of different digital tools, notably social networks, and the progressive digitalization of politics and American public politics. The course first covers the state of historical art and technology, then the different cognitive concepts that allow a better understanding of our relationship to the internet and digital technology. It considers the impact this has on the production of US public politics, the polarization in the country, and the presidencies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

This course introduces Greek art and architecture in the period 2500-50 BC. In the context of abroad chronological survey, the focus is on three main themes: the relationship between Greek art and society; addressing current problems in Greek art history, reception of Greek art and contemporary society; and extensive training in visual analysis and the different lenses to look at Greek art. Through images, videos, and 3D models, but also through museum visits to the British Museum, students engage in detailed and in-depth object analyses and discussions.

This course provides an understanding of key issues and applied methodologies relating to management accounting frameworks used by managers when faced with making financial decisions in the context of the business environment. The focus is on information for cost management, budgetary control, and short and longer term financial decision making. It examines the blend of financial analysis and managerial judgment required to make sound decisions. In particular there is an emphasis on issues in overhead cost recovery; contribution costing and CVP analysis; costing issues in the context of a competitive environment, including activity based costing (ABC); relevant costs for decision making; core investment appraisal techniques (ARR, Payback, NPV and IRR); budgetary control, variance analysis, and standard costing.

Aquatic environments make up more than 70% of the Earth’s surface. They host a huge diversity of life and ecosystems, many of which are vital to man. Topics covered in this module include diversity and ecology of freshwater and marine habitats and organisms, the impacts of humans on these environments, and the conservation and management of these critical resources. Overall learning outcomes include an appreciation and understanding of aquatic habitats, their physical and biological properties and their associated ecosystems. The importance of both marine and freshwater environments to Singapore will be highlighted.

After completing this course students are able to:

1. identify the key arguments in a primary philosophy text by key thinkers in Western philosophy. (Assessment: final exam, class participation, reading questions).
2. critically assess the arguments in a primary philosophy text by key thinkers in Western philosophy. (Assessment: final exam, class discussion, essays).
3. represent their critical, cogent assessments of arguments from the main themes of Western philosophy in an essay. (Assessment: essays, final exam).
4. express their cogent philosophical arguments in class discussions and beyond. (Assessment: class discussion).
5. Main goal: After completing this course students have a solid, if basic knowledge of the main figures and main themes (e.g. epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, mind, language, science) in the Western philosophical tradition, from the Ancient world to the 20th Century. (Assessment: final exam).

Content

Philosophy is neither a science nor an art, yet it is the mother of many arts and sciences, which have achieved independence from it by developing methods and techniques of their own. This course is an introduction to the discipline of philosophy, its authors, its history, its methods, and last but not least, its arguments.

Philosophy comprises a wide range of subjects and a long history of human thought relying on nothing but itself. Its problems and arguments have for two an a half millennia helped to articulate religious and political movements, to inspire art and literature, and so to shape societies and civilizations.

            The course is an invitation to hear western philosophers from twenty-four centuries reflecting on such large questions as (1) What, basically, is there? (2) Do we really know what we think we know? (3) How should we act and who should we choose to be? These are theoretical questions, but many of them have enormous practical implications. The questions are tied up with each other: our view on what there is, is related both to our view on what insures reliable knowledge, and to our view on how to derive evaluation from description, or how to get from ‘is’ to ‘ought’. By tracing the connections between these questions, philosophy helps to articulate a consistent and coherent world-view.
            Designed as a self-contained first presentation of the subject that, at the same time, provides a basis for more advanced work, our course introduces participants both to the major areas of philosophy as it is currently conceived and to significant stages in its two and a half millennia long development. We study the philosophers themselves primarily in brief extracts from their own works, and try to put human thought in systematic and historical perspectives. In the process we exercise and develop our capacity for analysis and argument, as well as our reading comprehension and our ability to communicate these in writing.

This is a first course in combinatorics and graph theory and covers graphs, Euler's V-E+F=2 Theorem, Kuratowski's Theorem, counting sets, generating functions, matching, Hall's Marriage Theorem, Polya counting, and counting paths in graphs.