Singapore

This course focuses on Chinese art and visual culture from the late imperial period to the 21st century against the backdrop of major socio-political and economic changes in China and the world. Through the study of material forms and the contexts in which they were created, the course looks at the ways in which art, artists, and their audiences responded to the challenges of modernity, reform, revolution, war, marketization, and globalization. The phenomenon of Chinese contemporary art, its collection, and connoisseurship, and the role of art schools, museums, bienniales, galleries, and auction houses is also examined.

This course investigates some of the deep and puzzling philosophical issues arising from mathematics. Some are metaphysical and semantic: What is mathematics about? Are there such things as mathematical objects (numbers, functions, sets, etc), and if so, do they exist in the same way as more familiar entities such as tables and chairs? Others are epistemological: How do we obtain mathematical knowledge? Does it arise from pure reason alone, or does the empirical world play a role? Students examine a number of influential views, including logicism, constructivism, platonism, fictionalism, and structuralism. The course requires students to take prerequisites.

This course introduces the principles of terrestrial ecology. Major topics include diversity and distributions of terrestrial environments, soils and nutrient cycling, animal-plant interactions (pollination, seed dispersal, herbivory), disturbance ecology and succession, energy flow and food webs, population biology, and fragmentation. The course has a strong quantitative focus. The course also covers ecological processes in rural (agricultural) and urban terrestrial environments.

This core course covers most of the common mental health problems identified for children and adults, e.g. eating disorders, behavioral problems, attention deficits, learning disabilities, schizophrenia, anxiety, stress, depression, personality disorders, sexual adjustment, substance abuse, suicide, and dementia. The lectures and discussion groups introduce clinical intervention, but emphasis is placed on the theoretical formulation of problems. Whenever possible, films and case studies are used to supplement the textbook and readings, and a visit to the local Institute of Mental Health is typically arranged.

This course explores language structure, in particular, patterns of sentence structure (syntax) and of meaning (semantics), from a cross-linguistic perspective. Concepts discussed include: grammatical categories, semantic relations, grammatical relations, constituency, and the relationship between grammar and the lexicon. A key feature of the course is its emphasis on the evidence and argumentation that bears upon the representation of structure and principles of grammar that we postulate. The course provides the foundation for the study of advanced courses investigating linguistic structure.

Drawing on the rich social science literature on the government and politics of contemporary Africa, the course addresses a set of critical questions that have important implications for the well-being of the people of the continent and the world in the 21st century. What have been the sources of political and economic crises in Africa? What has been the net impact of the regional and international interventions in the continent in response to these crises? What explains the revival of democracy and economic growth in some parts of the continent? Will it last?

This course introduces the variety of music in Southeast Asia, from traditional to pop, and contributes to students' understanding of the region. Lectures with audiovisual illustrations, which emphasize cultural and contextual approaches, are complemented by practical instruction in playing Javanese gamelan music. The course explores the different musical aesthetics, changing cultural and social contexts and functions (from village and palace rituals to arts academies, the cassette industry, and concerts), musical and cultural interaction, and the changing musical landscape of Southeast Asia.