Singapore

This course introduces the key questions, issues, and tools necessary to conduct qualitative research. It guides students through devising a research question, choosing appropriate research epistemologies, ethical implications, selecting appropriate methods of data collection and analysis, and writing a research proposal. Students learn the key techniques of qualitative sociological inquiry including interviews, focus groups, content and discourse analysis, archival research, participatory and action research, and various forms of ethnographic research. It further introduces relevant qualitative data analysis and research software, in addition to examining the analysis, writing, and reporting of qualitative research.

This course introduces the essentials of Einstein’s general theory of relativity: its basics concepts, mathematical formulation and observational consequences. Students develop an understanding of the geometrical structure and physical implications of this theory. Topics include the geometrical framework of general relativity and analytical tools used across subjects in theoretical physics and some branches of mathematics. The course requires students to take prerequisites.

This course introduces the theoretical, experimental and production processes of stop motion animation. Students analyze a range of stop motion animations, explore and develop industry-level production methods, and employ these to create a stop motion movie in collaboration with fellow students. This practical approach provides a collection of knowledge and practices that can be applied to contemporary stop motion practice.

This course explores the concept of physical activity and the importance of encouraging people to move more and sit less as part of health promotion efforts. Students examine measuring movement behaviors to equip students with the ability to judge data based on how it was obtained. Students identify and analyze various factors that impact how much or little people move. This includes looking into the psychology of physical activity, environmental assessments, and policy enquiries. Insights allow students to design an intervention that can improve movement behaviors. Students can gain tangible knowledge and skills for assessing, understanding, and changing movement behaviors across diverse populations.

This course introduces the theoretical question of the relationship between literature and high culture to the (less-literary) study of popular culture. Students examine the following key terms and sets of oppositions: (i) high culture vs. low culture; (ii) pop culture vs. popular (or mass) culture (the 2 terms are not the same); (iii) popular culture as resistance vs. pop/mass culture as consumption; and (iv) class and popular culture. Topics include debates about the value of cultural texts that are not of high cultural origins and could be treated as commodities within capitalist societies. Questions include 1. What is the impact and significance of commercially produced cultural products? 2. How do sub- and counter-cultural practices attempt to form alternative values systems? 3. What happens when alternative cultural formations become transformed into the mainstream? Students engage with the debate that the course will unveil and apply concepts learned critically. The course requires students to take prerequisites

This course introduces South Asian Islamic society, culture and religious thought, especially in Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives, the three South Asian countries with a Muslim majority and where Islam forms an important cultural element. The focus of this course is the period from c. 1750-1950, during which important developments took place in South Asian Islam. The course outlines the role of Islam in pre-colonial society as well as the movements for religious and political reform of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Questions of language and literature are also addressed.

This course covers the underlying principles and wide-ranging industrial, environmental, pharmaceutical, and biomedical applications of microbiology. The objectives are (a) to gain an understanding of the role of microorganisms for biotechnology applications in the fields of medicine, agriculture, organic chemistry, synthetic biology, public health, biomass conversion, bioremediation, and biomining; and (b) to review advances in genetics and molecular biology of industrial microorganisms, enzyme engineering, environmental microbiology, food microbiology, and molecular biotechnology. A particular focus will be on the meaning and impact of microbiology on human health and the development of new therapeutic approaches. The course requires students to take prerequisites.

This course explores Europe and Asia's mutual fascination with, and appropriation of, each other's visual and material cultures. From the Buddhist art of Central Asia to KL Petronas Towers through medieval textiles, chinoiseries, Orientalist paintings, colonial architecture, museums, modernist avant-gardes and postmodernism, the course surveys chronologically some fifteen centuries of East/West artistic interactions while introducing students to the disciplines (art and cultural history, post-colonial and cultural studies) concerned with visual culture. 

This course focuses on key events that take place in different stages of vertebrate nervous system development including neural induction, neurogenesis, glial biology, neuronal growth and polarity, axonal guidance, synapse formation, and regeneration. Pathological states such as muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative diseases are examined, both in terms of understanding the deficits as well as examining potential solutions to improve the outcomes of these neuronal diseases. Latest findings are discussed, allowing students to learn the current state of research in developmental neurobiology. The course requires students to take prerequisites.

This course addresses current needs for the statistical modeling of random patterns and structures in spatial contexts, which arise in multiple fields ranging from geophysical, life and earth sciences, to communication engineering and social network analysis. The course approach relies on computational and statistical tools from stochastic geometry. The course requires students to take prerequisites.