Hong Kong

This course examines the ways in which meanings are discursively constructed in the news. It will also critically reflect and debate on issues of power relations and ideologies of the news media: the influence they exert both on our governments and major institutions as well as their ability to shape our ideas, beliefs and behaviors through the news discourse that we immerse ourselves in. Adopting a linguistic/semiotic perspective, this course offers detailed insights into the language of the news by discussing the main characteristics of news discourse and exploring theoretical frameworks to research and analyze the use of text and image in the construction of news and the manifestations of power, control and ideology in the press. 

The course is designed around the principles of reflexive practice for personal leadership development, and includes strategic planning and vision formation, leadership communication and professionalism, mindfulness and compassionate leadership approaches and feedback for through individual and group coaching. 

The Cold War is never dead. It’s not even the Cold War, to paraphrase Faulkner. We are told that we are about to enter Cold War 2.0, or that we might already be living in it. We are often confronted in the media with Cold War parallels: the language of liberty, rivalry and other Cold War neologisms are everywhere on the rise. Not least, Cold War historians themselves are among the most vocal in reminding the public of the contemporary relevance of their expertise. On the face of it, this makes the historical category of analysis we call “the Cold War” a rather flexible one. What is being analogized here? Why can we not see the present day as something new under the sun, and therefore call it something new? And ultimately, what politics is this historical thinking answering to? And of course, the very fact of that plasticity calls into question not just the current usage of the historical term in its second reincarnation, but in its first incarnation as well. What, ultimately, was the Cold War? Can it be both the old traditional era, as well as the new one at the same time? Should it demarcate the whole of the history of the second half of the 20th century? Or should it be used as a rather more discreet term delimited to the bilateral relationship between two nations, as the term was initially used?

This course will concern itself mostly with those analytical questions. In other words, rather than reviewing a history of crises and high political stakes we unquestioningly term the Cold War, the course, while delivering the bare bones of this history, will concern itself with the analytical category itself. Historians are a fractious bunch, but historians of the Cold War have been especially quarrelsome. What were their arguments with one another about? Can we read history politically? How about culturally? Does using the “Cold War” as the encompassing historical category it has become illuminate more than it obscures? And what ultimately was the Cold War?

This course examines the evolving cultural dimensions of the digital domain. It examines moral issues, including privacy, surveillance, and hacking, as well as the political implications of our online lives. It also examines the aesthetic potential of the digital and investigates key concepts such as “virtuality,” “interactivity,” “hypertexts,” “simulation,” “cyborgs,” and “cyber-subcultures.” Media synergy and depictions of cyberculture in the cinema, literature, and other art forms will also be considered. 

This course examines behavioral economics, which incorporates insights from psychology and neuroscience into economic analysis. It covers decision-making under uncertainty, decision-making over time, social preferences, and non-standard beliefs. It will relate theories to empirical evidence and applications, including procrastination, labor supply, finance, and policymaking. 

This course examines China’s changing international relationships in Asia and beyond through frameworks and concepts in the international relations literature. Part I sets out the context, Part II examines some of the main approaches in international relations, while Part III applies these to questions of regionalism in East Asia, maritime politics, and the Belt and Road Initiative.

This course examines sensation and perception, with an emphasis on the psychology of seeing. Specific topics include the following: examination of the functional properties of sensory systems (e.g., auditory system, color vision, vestibular system, touch and kinaesthesia); phenomenology of sensation and perception; psychophysical limits of perceptual systems; goals of sensory coding; structure and evolution of sensory systems; theories of perception. 

This course examines the History of the Modern World – the events, people, and long-term developments which, since the end of the Middle Ages, have shaped and reshaped human society – with a focus on the growth of international developments and the creation of today’s globalized world. Throughout the semester, we will also be interrogating the continued tensions between local identities and dynamics, state centralization and the rise of nationalism, the spread of Western notions of universalism, and non-Western societies’ adaptation to or rejection of those dynamics. What role did the Christianization of Latin America play in the imperial project? What did it mean for a sparsely-populated settler-colonial society to declare that all men are created equal? How “anti-colonial” were the Marxist movements of the Global South?

This course examines the connections between different cinemas within East Asia and between East Asia and the rest of the world from a genre perspective. Hong Kong and Korean film noir, Chinese swordplay and Japanese samurai films, horror films from Hong Kong and Japan: all are examples of the transnational circulation of genres, involving processes of both localization and globalization. Students will be invited to explore genre theory, trace complex webs of creative influences, and appreciate the sameness and difference that characterize both genre films and our globalizing world. They will also have a chance to apply this new knowledge in practice, by making a short “genre film” for screening at the end of the term.

This course examines fundamental concepts, theories, and methodologies of sociology. It covers specific aspects of social life, such as families, gender, religion, deviance, and social stratification, and demonstrate how sociological ideas and tools can be applied to better understand our social lives and the social problems we face.