Hong Kong

This course studies basic issues concerning the nature, justification, limits, and problems of democracy. Topics include the meaning of democracy; democracy, political equality, and majority rule; justification of political equality and the challenge of elitism or guardianship; judicial review as it protects or undermines democracy; classic Athenian democracy; modern representative democracy; participatory democracy and its critique of liberal democracy; the effectiveness of participatory democracy, rational choice perspective, and facts about political participation; responses to the problems of participatory democracy; and the Marxist critique of capitalist democracy.

This course explores and evaluates early Chinese philosophers' answers to questions of morals, ethics, philosophy, and psychology as presented in selected early Chinese philosophical texts related to people's nature, motivation, moral cultivation, moral reasoning, and action. Topics discussed include: people's typical moral dispositions; morally relevant features of people's nature (xing); the role of the heart (xin) in guiding action; the role of desire, emotion, and normative judgment in motivation and action; methods of moral education and training; the nature and function of virtue; and the structure of action. The course focuses on four major texts—Mozi, Mengzi, Xunzi, and Zhuangzi —and devotes much attention to how these texts criticize and respond to each other's views. Comparisons and contrasts with major Western thinkers such as Aristotle, Hume, and Kant are drawn.

The course consists of three parts. The first part covers mathematical background, multivariable calculus, and basic probability. The second part teaches equilibrium thermodynamics, covering the laws of thermodynamics and thermodynamics functions, with applications to various problems in phase equilibrium, chemical and electrochemical equilibrium. The third part teaches equilibrium statistical thermodynamics, covering the Boltzmann distribution, statistical ensembles and partition functions and their relations to thermodynamics functions.

This course provides an overview of International Relations (IR) theory, with focus on the concepts and approaches often adopted in studying the discipline. It explores different theoretical frameworks and key issues encountered by the globalizing society. The course covers a wide array of topics including mainstream international relations theories, supplemented with case studies; analysis of key theoretical literatures and respective historiographical perspectives, such as the Clash of Civilizations and its critics; in-depth studies on selected thematic issues; and International Relations theory and Globalization. Assessment: midterm paper (30%), final paper (30%), presentation (30%), attendance and participation (10%).

This is an introductory course to macroeconomics. It covers business cycles in a closed economy, aggregate fluctuation in an open economy, and economic growth (if time permits). This course deals with theory, data, and economic policies to develop a balanced perspective on the real-world economic environment. We begin with defining major macroeconomic variables such as gross domestic product, price level, and unemployment rate. Then we investigate how the goods and money markets move in the short run (IS-LM). Building on the IS-LM model, we include the labor market in the analysis to derive the AS-AD model for the medium run. We further extend the model to an open economy by bringing trade and exchange rates into the framework. Finally, we study the long run trends in output, i.e., economic growth.

Any consideration of global citizenship is incomplete without an examination of migration as part of the contemporary world. This course provides an introductory understanding of immigrant entrepreneurs. To understand the operation of immigrant entrepreneurs, we first discuss the general theories of immigrant adaptation. The theoretical framework for understanding migration ranges from the classic Chicago School to the recent institutional approach to migration. We then explore how immigrant entrepreneurship is related to the adaptation and survival strategies taken by immigrants. We focus on how immigrant resources to start their businesses and their impact to ethnic communities. The course also examines policies governing immigration and their impact on global citizenship. Students have an option to visit Taiwan and learn about immigrants and social entrepreneurship there.

This course offers an introduction to morphology, the study of how complex words are created and grammatically modified to encode different kinds of linguistic information. Much of the coursework involves working through data in a variety of languages in order to provide familiarity with some of the interesting morphological phenomena found among the world's languages.

The course starts from 6/17 to 8/10, 8 weeks in total, each week conduct about 25-30 hours independent work. Assisting a postgraduate student under the supervision of Prof. Pan HUI at HKUST. The project topic is about the Study of nationalist behavior during crisis under mainly Python environment. Since the summer period is too short, no specific outcome is required, and only 1 HKUST credit is assigned, with P/NP grading.

This interdisciplinary course introduces and examines gender and sexuality from a contemporary and regional perspective. Based on a cross-cultural perspective, we examine and analyze different meanings of gender and sexuality, and how these meanings are constructed. In a context of modernization campaigns and globalization processes, this course illustrates how gender relations and sexual politics are related with historical backgrounds, cultural heritage, market expansion, ideological shifts, and capitalist dynamics. The topics of gender and sexuality are interwoven with that of migration, work, family, popular culture, mass media, and consumerism.