Minor in Cultural Studies

Cultural Studies equips students with the requisite skills for cultural understanding, critique and versatility – vital to success in the contemporary economy. The Cultural Studies Minor is interdisciplinary in scope. You are encouraged to select resonant courses from across the Faculty.

What is Cultural Studies?

Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary field focused on the interpretation and understanding of everyday cultural forms and practices, including social media, popular music, television, film, popular fiction and popular art. These sites are central to our daily lives. However, they have often been placed outside the boundaries of established disciplines such as sociology, history, literature and politics. Cultural Studies grapples with the contemporary moment through drawing across disciplines to engage with how we create meaning about the complex world in which we live.

Student learning outcomes

Students who take up this minor will gain knowledge of contemporary debates in cultural studies, as well as hone a theoretical tool-kit capable of analysing a range of social processes that give rise to and underpin popular cultural forms and practices. Through interdisciplinary methodologies, Cultural Studies combines and adapts qualitative research strategies to specific topics, including textual analysis, ethnographic observation, and different theories of interpretation, including semiotics, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism and post-modernism.

What career prospects are there?

Because Cultural Studies is engaged with a critical analysis of contemporary culture, a minor in Cultural Studies can be of use to any job that one wishes to pursue. The ability to read, think, write, and engage critically with all aspects of daily culture is a formidable skill to take into the job market in an knowledge-based economy, especially in an age where cultural consumption is central to the economy.

Cognate majors

This minor will add value to the curriculum experience for these majors: Chinese Studies, Communications and New Media, English Literature, European Studies, Geography, History, Japanese Studies, Malay Studies, Sociology, South Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Studies.

Minor requirements

To find out about how to graduate with the Minor in Cultural Studies, please click on the cohort that applies to you below. If you have any specific query regarding the minor, please write to cnm.undergraduate@nus.edu.sg, or call +65 6516 4670.

List of recognised courses

The various courses that are recognised towards the Cultural Studies Minor are listed below. You may also email the academic convenor Professor Audrey Yue to recognise FASS courses not in this list or courses taken during exchange programmes at other universities for the minor