National University of 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.

This course introduces the world of digital platforms and helps understand what makes them click. From network effects to monetization strategies to metrics, students are exposed to the underlying nuts and bolts of creating successful digital platforms. Digital platforms – whose value proposition differs from the traditional pipeline business paradigm – still employ certain business fundamentals such as corporate governance, customer lifetime value, pricing, etc. The course also curates these fundamentals and applies them to a platform setting. Overall, the course aims to equip students to critically analyze digital platforms and serve as an impetus to creating their own. In this interdisciplinary course, students are exposed to the world of platform-based business models as well as the underlying fundamentals of finance and marketing. The course tries to answer interesting questions such as: what’s Airbnb’s business model, how much do you have to save every year for retirement, how do you read a company’s balance sheet, why is Starbucks successful, how do you price a product, etc. For the platforms section of this course, students learn about platform models of business and how they differ from a traditional pipeline model of business. Students learn how platforms generate value through network effects. Students are exposed to the types of metrics they should keep in mind during various phases of a platform: startup, growth, and maturity. Finally, students learn about the types of industries most susceptible to the platform revolution, and thus, the future of platforms. For the finance part, students learn four carefully curated topics: corporate governance, basics of financial accounting, financial statement analysis, and time value of money. These topics allow a student to easily grasp the fundamentals of modern corporate finance and help to critically analyze contemporary issues in the world of business. The marketing part of the course attempts to unravel the secrets of what it takes to be global leaders in various products and services. The course delves into the fundamentals of marketing and introduces the idea of customer lifetime value-a principle that’s indispensable in today’s world of platforms. Finally, the course explores the idea of pricing, and various pricing strategies that are used by successful companies.

Piracy, understood broadly as violence or crime at sea, is a present day phenomenon and yet one which has a history spanning centuries and across all the oceans of the world. From pirates to privateers, corsairs to raiders, maritime predators take various names and forms. This course explores the history of pirates and piracy. By examining case studies from the 1400s onwards and by placing pirates into the context of oceanic history and maritime studies, the course seeks to demystify the popular images often associated with pirates.

This module introduces the various standards and techniques of sketching, how to prepare engineering drawings and specifications, and how to interpret drawings. Students use advanced commercial CAD software to do 3D solid modeling. Above all, this module expands the students’ creative talent and enhances their ability to communicate their ideas in a meaningful manner. Major topics include: principles of projections; isometric; orthographic and isometric sketching; 3D solid modeling; sectioning and dimensioning; drawing standards; and limits, fits, and geometrical tolerances. This module provides the student with the fundamental knowledge to do calculations on design components like bolts, screws, fasteners, weld joints, springs, gears, material selection, fatigue, bearings, and shafts.