Hong Kong

This course is designed to examine human life issues through movie watching. A social work perspective and a humanistic outlook of life is adopted to view human lives at individual, family and society levels. Students are expected to develop an awareness and a sense of concern for people and the society. Movies related to social work values, such as people's capacity for change, respect for human worth and dignity, and social justice are reviewed and discussed. Social issues, such as discrimination, mental illness and issue of oppression are covered.

This course introduces economic and political anthropology, two of the major subfields of anthropology. For anthropologists, the economy is not numbers and markets, but how cultures produce, distribute, and consume goods. People in different cultures have different ways of making a living, but they are not completely different; what are the patterns and rules? Is it human nature to be selfish and always want more things? Why do some people and countries have more wealth than others? Is poverty natural and inevitable? These are not just matters of economics, but of power. This course then examines a few aspects of political economy, from consumerism and the destruction of the environment, to nationalism, protest and rebellion.

This course places a normative emphasis on how social policy, planning and practice are a force for progressive transformation and sustainable, equitable, gender-aware and socially-just development. The study of long-term structural and macro dimensions is combined with attention to the local and the specific, within Hong Kong and the wider world. Diverse areas of social development practice including planning and intervention, asset building, community action, employment and decent work, microfinance and microenterprise are explored using case study and experiential learning to develop analytical skill and allow practical application of classroom based learning.

This course introduces the literature of Africa by way of its Nobel Prize-winning authors and their work, and examines the major issues surrounding it. It begins by questioning the very meaning of the term “African literature,” before examining some of its most salient features and issues such as its complex relationship with colonialism that made languages of Europe become the literary languages of Africa; the various forms of narration in Africa; colonialism and resistance; the tension between traditionalism and the African novel; as well as the complex relationship between African continental and diasporic literature. It also looks at major contemporary African literary Movements and their historical significance.