General Education and CHS Common Curriculum
Semester 1 - General Education Courses
Gilbert YEOH
Can movies engage with serious concerns? Through the close study of films by great directors, this course explores how film as an artistic medium can be used to engage with significant socio-cultural and existential concerns. Students will be taught how to analyze film as an artistic medium and, further, how film directors use the aesthetic elements of film to engage with important subjects. Through films by directors like Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Wong Kar-Wai and Zhang Yimou, students get a chance to reflect on issues like the human condition, the family, the urban condition, love and society, and the nation.
Preclusion for GEC1017: GEH1053
Preclusion for GEH1053: GEC1017
Miguel ESCOBAR
Digital technologies expand the frontiers of the humanities through interactive publishing, machine-driven analysis, media-rich platforms, online archives and crowd-sourced databases. This course invites students from across the university to consider these new approaches through a problem-based approach. In each session, the students will learn to use and critically evaluate digital approaches. Reflecting the multiple perspectives within the digital humanities, teaching combines seminar discussions with computational thinking projects that require the students to pose humanities questions in terms of data.
Preclusion for GEI1002: GET1030
Preclusion for GET1030: GEI1002
Peggy FERROA & Jeffrey TAN
This course introduces students to how theatre can be an effective tool to engage communities. Leveraging on theatre’s inherent collaborative, experiential and embodied propensities, the course aims to raise student awareness of the sensitivities, responsibilities & creativity of Theatre in community engagement. Students will be tasked to envision and pitch theatre-centred community engagement projects.
Edna LIM
Hollywood cinema is arguably the most popular and dominant cinema in the world but it is also a group style that represents a particular mode of expression and approach to the cinematic medium. This course explores the ways that Hollywood has used film form to create a naturalised style and viewing experience. We will study its conventions as well as the variations and deviations that push the envelope or constitute alternative constructions of the realistic. This course is 100% CA and some of the films studied may have mature content.
Preclusion for GEX1031: GET1044
Preclusion for GET1044 : GEX1031
Semester 2 - General Education Courses
Miguel ESCOBAR
Digital technologies expand the frontiers of the humanities through interactive publishing, machine-driven analysis, media-rich platforms, online archives and crowd-sourced databases. This course invites students from across the university to consider these new approaches through a problem-based approach. In each session, the students will learn to use and critically evaluate digital approaches. Reflecting the multiple perspectives within the digital humanities, teaching combines seminar discussions with computational thinking projects that require the students to pose humanities questions in terms of data.
Preclusion for GEI1002: GET1030
Preclusion for GET1030: GEI1002
Gayatri PILLAI
Arguably, the most pressing contemporary issue that affects all humanity is the global environmental crisis. This course aims to engage with Green Communities in Singapore in order to synthesise their common aim to fight the negative effects of climate crisis. It will examine cultural, political and literary narratives, and draw on field studies to provide both knowledge-based and experiential insight into various green projects. This course exposes students from across disciplines to salient directions in the environmental humanities and to observe praxis methodologies in action. It approaches the climate crisis primarily from the angle of ecocritical textual analysis.
Edna LIM
This course explores the ways in which Singapore films constitute a national cinema. It explores a series of Singapore films from the golden age to the revival and key topics such as space, language, and history. Through a group creative project, students are challenged to make their own Singapore film or curate an online Singapore film festival that involves the practical application of critical ideas and enables students to participate in the ways that a national cinema performs and functions.
Preclusion for GESS1021: GES1029
Preclusion for GES1029: GESS1021
Alvin LIM
This course introduces a broad spectrum of performance practices that may be identified as local cultural expressions found in Singapore. Such practices occur in varied spaces and mediums, and include street opera, getai [song-stage], animal performances, theatre, film, religious festivals, national day parades, YouTube video performances and mobile gaming. Students will explore the rich performative histories of these practices and study concepts of performativity, liveness, and mediation. They will learn the ways in which technology and media play a crucial part in cultural expression and identity formation. The course is open to all students and Continuous Assessment is 100%.
Preclusion for GESS1028: GES1039
Preclusion for GES1039: GESS1028
SHEN Zheng
Our capacity for language is a defining aspect of what it means to be human and is central to both thought and communication. This course investigates the rules that underlie what we say, how meaning is encoded, and how we reason with language. We will apply mathematical tools of pattern description and logic to describe and better understand human language, with the goal of developing logical explanations for linguistic phenomena. Comparison to artificial and programming languages will be discussed. Emphasis will be placed on clear, precise descriptions and their accessible communication through writing and oral presentation.
Preclusion for GEX1019: GET1036
Preclusion for GET1036: GEX1019
Semester 2 - Interdisciplinary Pillar Courses
Jennifer ESTES & Robin LOON
How can we learn about people’s experiences, ethically represent their lives, and communicate their stories to an audience? What is the affective power of live performance? How can these performances inform the public’s understanding of pressing social issues? This course explores these questions by integrating approaches from anthropology and theatre studies. You will apply the ideas you learn into practice by collaborating in groups to create a performance piece based on your original research. In the process, you will hone your ability to employ qualitative research methods, craft compelling narratives, and communicate complex ideas.
Advisory pre-requisites:
- This module is reserved for students from Year 2 onwards.
- Students are encouraged to have completed HSS1000 and HSH1000.
Nick HUANG
Language is one of the basic defining characteristics of what is it to be human, although recent advances seem to have helped computers master at least some aspects of human language. But how does human language work, and do machines handle it the same way as humans do? This course is an overview, for non-specialists, of rule-based and statistical approaches that have proven to be very effective at modeling various aspects of human language, used whether by humans or by computers. The course will also provide students with a greater appreciation of the strengths and limitations of these two approaches.
Advisory pre-requisites:
- This course is reserved for students from Year 2 onwards.
- Students are encouraged to have completed a course from either the CHS Digital Literacy pillar and/or the CHS Data Literacy pillar.
Susan ANG & Adrian LEE
What is colour? Is this a question for science or a question for the arts? Our species has known colour throughout its evolutionary history. It influences how we interact with the world and gives insights into the very nature of the universe. We communicate in and with colour. In this course, we will ask questions about light and vision, pigments and dyes, the psychological and emotional effects of colour, and about its impact on social and cultural identity. These questions will find answers in science and the arts, but will only find proper meaning when these answers blend.
Advisory pre-requisites:
- This course is reserved for students from Year 2 onwards.
- Students are encouraged to have completed at least two of the Level-1000 CHS Common Curriculum courses, which may include: HSI1000, HSH1000, CHS Data Literacy course, and CHS Digital Literacy course.
Edna LIM & Nina POWELL
How is a city “smart”, and what does it mean to live in one? Is “smart” the same as “intelligent”? What do these terms mean, and how are they used in relation to cities, technologies and humans? This course draws on psychology and performance studies to answer these questions. We explore human and artificial intelligence as comparative yet distinct cognitive mechanisms, and as constructs that acquire meaning and value through discourse, culture, and the media. We study how our understanding of what it means to be “smart” and “intelligent” has developed and informs how we live in a smart city.
Advisory pre-requisites:
- This course is reserved for students from Year 2 onwards.
- Students are encouraged to have completed at least two of the Level-1000 CHS Common Curriculum courses, which may include: HSA1000, HSS1000, HSI1000, HSH1000, HS1501, HS1502, IT1244, CHS Data Literacy course, and CHS Digital Literacy course.
Semesters 1 and 2 - Writing, Expression and Communication (WEC) Course
Steven GREEN & Graham WOLFE
This course develops and applies the core strategies that underlie successful academic writing. These include writing with clarity and precision, analysing how authors argue, organizing and expressing ideas to guide readers through a line of reasoning, citing and documenting sources, revising the content, wording, and organization of a paper, as well as surface features such as spelling and punctuation. Students gain an appreciation of the basics of academic writing through three units, which correspond to the three stages of writing – introduction, body, and conclusion.
Note: As part of the CHS Common Curriculum requirement, FASS students (Cohort 2021 onwards) must read and pass FAS1101.
Students must have passed/been exempted from the NUS Qualifying English Test (QET) or have passed CELC English for Academic Purposes courses before they are allowed to read FAS1101.
Pre-requisite: Students who are required to read ES1000 Foundation Academic English and/or ES1103 English for Academic Purposes must pass those courses before they are allowed to read FAS1101.
There are no pre-requisites for students who are exempted from the Qualifying English Test (QET).
Preclusion:
1) Non-CHS students
2) Students who have read and passed ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 or ES1501%
3) Students who have read and passed ES2531, ES2631, SP1541, SP1541X, UTW1001% and RVX100%
Please refer to this for more information.