National University of Singapore

This course looks at how one's voice is made and how one uses and modulates it. The course provides understanding of the physiological processes that produce voice and the relationship between mind and body in vocal communication. This practical workshop uses techniques developed by actors and singers that improve the resonance and musicality of the speaking voice and also vocal strength and endurance. Using verse, prose and dramatic text, students work on vocal characteristics - pitch, intonation patterns, pace and pausing, placement to improve their oral delivery.

This course explores the political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of the complex idea of home. Major topics include: sense of place, home technologies and design, gender and housework, home and travel, globalisation, nationalism, homelessness, exile, and representations of home. Students complete the course with a new appreciation for the complexity of the places – house, neighborhood, nation, planet – they call home.

This course aims to interrogate core concepts in the humanities and social sciences through the lens of India’s most powerful film industry. Through an exploration of selected films, students will think critically and creatively about key cultural, social and political themes originating in the subcontinent. They will analyze important developments in India and the diaspora through the study of Bollywood cinema. The course will thus facilitate a nuanced understanding of the relationship between text and context, with a focus on Bollywood.

This course examines the daily life of Chinese Singaporeans during the late 19th to 20th centuries, focusing on their cultural expressions and social actions, revolving around eight geo‐cultural sites, namely, Singapore River, Chinatown, Chinese temples, clan associations, opera stages, amusement parks, hawker centers, and streets/roads. Students compare the past and present of these sites through oral history and fieldwork observation.

This course introduces concepts used in sociology and anthropology and trains how to use those concepts in analyzing social institutions and processes. Students relate their experiences in society to the discipline of sociology. Topics include: the logic and methods of social investigation; family, work, and organization; power and the state; social inequality (including gender and ethnicity); mass communication and popular culture; values and beliefs; and deviance and social control.