English

This course, designed as a series of interactive workshops, offers an opportunity to write in English within the student's own discipline and to discuss writing with international peers. It also invites students to reflect on writing habits and writer identity. Students choose a research problem to investigate and follow the stages of researching and writing as two interlinked processes: focus the research question, find and review relevant literature, and collect the best evidence to argue for the importance of the research project. The course also provides an opportunity to read like a writer by analyzing model texts and sample texts written by peers to better understand rhetorical strategies and stylistic conventions of selected academic text types. Students also practice writing and giving feedback through drafting four sections of the research paper (an extended definition of a key concept, literature review, argumentative synthesis, and an introduction), discussing these drafts with peers and tutors. The semester of reading, writing, and exchanging ideas with international peers from various disciplines allow students to become better academic communicators.

Literature is a cultural and aesthetic phenomenon that takes on many different forms in different periods, regions, and languages. In all of these forms, literature reflects in one way or another the society from which it emerges. This course focuses on the complex relations between literature and society and to write and speak about them in an academic way. The course considers the characteristics of narrative, interpretation, poetics, and textuality, and place literary texts and analyses in specific historical and cultural contexts. In this course students consider key literary debates via the analysis of different texts from a number of different perspectives in literary studies. Students learn to see literature as a cultural phenomenon and are able to reflect academically on ethical and aesthetic aspects of literature; become familiar with different theoretical and critical movements; know a number of case studies, in which literary texts have influenced ethical debates; are able to write and speak about these kinds of issues in an academic way; acquire a supra-lingual perspective on literature.

This course develops presentation skills for speaking before academic audiences. Students practice writing to think through research and communicate thoughts by means of informative and appealing texts. This intensive course, designed as a series of interactive workshops, offers an opportunity to present and write in English within the student's own discipline and reflect on use of academic sources, AI literacy, presentation skills, writing habits, and writer identity. Students choose a research problem to investigate and follow the stages of researching and writing as two interlinked processes: focus the research question, conduct the literature review, collect the best evidence to argue for the importance of the research project. The course also provides an opportunity to read like a writer by analyzing model texts and sample texts written by peers to better understand rhetorical strategies and stylistic conventions of selected academic text types. Students practice presenting by preparing three 3-minute presentations based on secondary sources about the research question, delivered for a small group of peers. They also present for 7 minutes in front of the whole class to share their views, engage in a question-and-answer session, and hear feedback on their performance. Students also practice writing and giving feedback through drafting three sections of the research paper (extended definition of a key concept, literature review, introduction or discussion/conclusion), cite primary as well as secondary sources, and acknowledge collaboration with AI. Students exchange feedback on drafts with peers and receive comments from tutors in order to rewrite their texts for greater persuasiveness and clarity. The semester of reading, writing, presenting, and exchanging ideas with international peers from various disciplines allow students to become better academic communicators.

This course introduces students to the study of Comparative Literature through 19th-century novels from France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, and the UK. All texts are read in English translation. Students are introduced to a representative and canonical range of fictional works, with focus on one literary genre - the novel - and one over-arching theme. Lecturers, seminar leaders, and secondary criticism all model a variety of comparative approaches for students and promote discussion of the discipline.

This course examines the development throughout modern drama from realism and naturalism to absurdism and post-modernist theatre. Topics include Strindberg, Ibsen, Pirandello, Brecht, Beckett, Churchill, and Shepherd as well as contemporary Singaporean dramatist Kuo Pao Kun. In addition to understanding how changing theatrical trends embody changing epistemological, ontological and ideological attitudes, students develop a powerful comparative appreciation of the interconnected evolution of Asian and Western drama.

Students participate in creative writing exercises and improvisation games to find their playwriting voice as well as honing an ear for the spoken word onstage. Students examine examples of play scripts with a view to recognizing and utilizing techniques and generate new scripts via exercises and assignments. Students gain a practitioner's understanding of the creative process to evaluate their own writing and its impact on readers and audiences. This course requires a prerequisite.

This course examines the ways in which theory can be used as an interpretive practice in literary criticism and how literary scholars think, read, and write with theory. It focuses on how to generate and sustain a dialogue between literary and theoretical texts and trains the ability to identify the resonances and tensions that exist between these distinct registers of writing. Through the overlapping exigences of race, gender, and ecology, the course explores how theory—as critically engaged with literature—might clarify and fundamentally transform how to make sense of the world.

This course explores basic concepts of cognitive linguistics and their application to the analysis of the English language. It examines the structure of English through the study of linguistic conceptualization and basic results of cognitive science.

This course offers a study of the comics medium which includes graphic narratives, comics, graphic novels, and manga. It discusses the medium through different time periods, formats, materials, styles, aesthetics, genres, and themes with a focus on long-form works.

This course teaches the basics of major literary theories. Each lecture focuses on a specific theoretical approach to texts and cultural phenomena, such as psychoanalytic criticism, feminist criticism, gender and queer criticism, new historicism, and postcolonial criticism. By engaging with diverse critical frameworks, the course aims to deepen our appreciation for the richness and complexity of literature and other cultural forms.