Theatre and Performance Studies Courses
Theatre and Performance Studies offers a wide range of courses in contemporary approaches to thinking about performance, as well as thinking through practice. They are grouped in three strands:
For Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018: Timeframes, Cultural Practices, and Perspective on Performance
For Cohort 2019 onwards: Framing Histories, Cultures in Practice, and Researching Performance
Courses focus on specific theatre and performance cultures, histories, movements, practices and ideas, such as pre-modern Asian theatres, cinematic and digital practices, popular culture, cultural performance in Asia and applied theatre. Across the range from introductory courses (including General Education courses) to more specialised topics, the courses share a common commitment to understanding how theatre is made and the contexts in which it has significance for its communities.
One of the most distinctive things about Theatre and Performance Studies is the range of activities it entails. At NUS, these diverse kinds of learning include:
• Lectures and seminars
• Workshops, practical sessions and group projects
• Working on productions and creating performances
• Field trips to the theatre and other events
• Independent study and thesis writing
• Practice research with staff members
• Internships with professional companies and arts institutions
Unless otherwise stated, all level 1000–6000 courses carry 4 units.
Level 4000HM coded courses carry 5 units each (for Cohort 2020 and before).
For more details on the courses below, consult CANVAS or contact the course lecturer.
Courses offered in AY2023/2024 Semester 1
Robin LOON
This course will provide students with foundational knowledge of the different aspects of, approaches and discursive contexts relating to the study and praxis of theatre and performance. The course will also introduce students to the various forms of classical and contemporary performance practices and their attendant modes of analyses: combining play analysis, theatre history & theory. Using complementary content-centred lectures and practice laboratory, the course creates an environment where students simultaneously engage with course content while investigating its relations to the creation of theatre and performance.
Strand: Non-stranded (from Cohort 2014)
Pre-requisite: Exempted from NUS Qualifying English Test, or passed NUS Qualifying English Test, or exempted from further CELC Remedial English courses.
Thong Pei Qin
This course focuses on key figures and aspects of contemporary performance as a means of learning about innovative approaches to theatre practice. Taking the works of a significant dramatist, director, theorist or theatre/performance genre as their starting point, students will investigate the resulting aesthetic and conceptual innovations, and explore their implications for current approaches to performance making more generally. As such, the course combines creative and critical practice, and features a variety of reflective, analytical and practical assessment tasks, including a group performance project.
Strand: Timeframes (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Framing Histories (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: TS1101E
YONG Li Lan
Intended for students majoring in Theatre Studies, this course aims to explore how the boundaries of social and cultural identities are constructed and crossed in performance. By looking at various forms of performance texts, it will examine a) racial and gender identities represented in the body and language, b) patterns of image-making and c) the performative dynamics of the encounter between different identities. Throughout the course, students will be guided to address the questions of how the differences across the borderlines are represented and challenged and, also, whether these boundaries are ultimately directed towards specific cultural ends.
Strand: Cultural Practices (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Cultures in Practice (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: TS1101E
Noorlinah Mohamed
This course looks at how one’s voice is made and how one can modulate it. Students will get an understanding of the physiological processes that produce voice and the relationship between mind and body in vocal communication. Hence this is also a very practical workshop using techniques developed by actors and singers that will improve the resonance and musicality of the speaking voice and also vocal strength and endurance. Using verse, prose and dramatic text, students will work on vocal characteristics - pitch, intonation patterns, pace and pausing, placement - and so improve their oral delivery.
Strand: Perspectives on Performance (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Researching Performance (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: TS1101E
LIANG Peilin
This course develops students' theoretical and practical perspectives of Applied Theatre, a term that embraces different strands of socially engaged theatre, and focuses on the 'usefulness' of theatre in various educational and community contexts. Through exploring a range of practical approaches deployed by some key practitioners in the field, students are guided to think critically about how the social efficacy of theatre can be promoted and debated. Leading approaches are re-examined in light of context‐ and culture‐specific situations, and students' practical experience form a basis to engage with theoretical questions and issues of creating participatory theatre in non‐conventional settings.
Strand: Perspectives on Performance (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Researching Performance (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: TS1101E
Edna LIM
This course explores the many ways in which theatre and film are distinct but closely inter-related mediums. The bulk of the course focuses on close analysis of texts that have been adapted from the stage to the screen, examining performativity within those texts and how the essential properties that define the stage and the screen contribute to and facilitate particular ways for performing such texts. Notions of theatricality and the cinema will be interrogated, especially in relation to how cinema can be ‘theatrical’ and the theatre ‘cinematic’. Teaching and assessment modes include lectures, seminars, workshops and guided practical coursework.
Strand: Perspectives on Performance (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Researching Performance (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: Nil
YONG Li Lan
Shakespeare’s plays have been known in many parts of Asia for about 100 years, and contemporary Asian theatre practice shows at once a great diversity of approaches to them, and patterns of common interest in production and reception. This course takes recent productions from different theatre cultures to compare how Shakespeare’s texts are engaged through non-realist aesthetic principles, and how self-reflexive treatments of naturalism, as well as new scripts based on his plays, interact with the cultural values represented by Shakespeare in the East and Southeast Asian region. Assessment includes the option of a creative project.
Strand: Cultural Practices (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Cultures in Practice (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: TS1101E or EN1101E
Note: Can be read by EN students in fulfilment of EN major requirements at level 3000, as a recognised module.
Haresh SHARMA
This course aims to train students in the art and practice of play-writing while simultaneously offering them the opportunity to role-play the professional responsibilities and disciplines of a playwright. Topics to be covered include dramatic structure, dramatic action, the relationship between dialogue and action, characterisation, setting, the use of physical objects to create meaning, and different treatments of time on stage. Students will be assigned research and writing exercises throughout the course culminating in a full-length play. Students will also be expected to act in and direct other students’ scenes and plays as part of the continuous re-drafting and critique process.
Strand: Perspectives on Performance (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Researching Performance (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite for TS4212: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 80 units, including 20 units in TS.
Preclusion for TS4212: EN3271, TS4212HM
Pre-requisite for TS4212HM: Cohort 2020 and before: Completed 80 units, including 28 units in TS, with a minimum GPA of 3.20 or be on the Honours track.
Preclusion for TS4212HM: EN3271, TS4212
Graham WOLFE
This is not a course about Postmodernism. This is a course examining the relationship between Postmodernism and Theatre, their tensions and complements. The course will examine notions of theatricality and performativity that have come to characterise Postmodernism. Related ideas of simulacra and rehearsal, occularism and spectatorship, self-consciousness and self-reflexivity will be debated and discussed. Postmodernism as style, attitude and as mode will be pitched against performance aesthetics and theatre techniques to further explore the relationship between the two. The course will also locate Singapore theatre practices in the context of a global postmodernity.
Strand: Perspectives on Performance (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Researching Performance (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite for TS4218: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 80 units, including 20 units in TS.
Preclusion for TS4218: TS4218HM
Pre-requisite for TS4218HM: Cohort 2020 and before: Completed 80 units, including 28 units in TS, with a minimum GPA of 3.20 or be on the Honours track.
Preclusion for TS4218HM: TS4218
Alvin LIM
Doing performance can teach us things that watching it cannot. This course uses performance practice as a research methodology to investigate otherwise inaccessible questions of creativity, embodiment, and performance processes. The three main components of the course include: defining a research question, designing and conducting experiments/observations, presenting the outcomes. Students will conceptualise and execute their own research project, in a relationship of collaborative research with artists. The nature of the project determines the resulting presentation: multi-media talk, lecture-demonstration, or short performance or workshop. The course will also focus on case studies from a range of cultural and stylistic sources.
Strand: Perspectives on Performance (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Researching Performance (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite for TS4221: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 80 units, including 20 units in TS.
Preclusion for TS4221: TS4221HM
Pre-requisite for TS4221HM: Cohort 2020 and before: Completed 80 units, including 28 units in TS, with a minimum GPA of 3.20 or be on the Honours track.
Preclusion for TS4221HM: TS4221
Thong Pei Qin
Live performance is a vibrant and dynamic art form, and innovations in aesthetics and technique mean that it is constantly changing. Over the course of this course, students will conduct a critical assessment of recent developments in performance practice, and of their implications for performance theory and analysis. Recent trends in performance and scholarship will be surveyed, informed by a combination of publications, electronic resources, and theatre-going. Students will be assessed on their capacity to develop informed responses to the work, to conduct and present independent research into current trends, and to reflect critically on the concept of the ‘contemporary’.
Strand: Timeframes (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Framing Histories (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite for TS4880C: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 80 units, including 20 units in TS.
Preclusion for TS4880C: TS4880CHM
Pre-requisite for TS4880CHM: Cohort 2020 and before: Completed 80 units, including 28 units in TS, with a minimum GPA of 3.20 or be on the Honours track.
Preclusion for TS4880CHM: TS4880C
TS4401 (8 units)
TS4401HM (15 units)
The Honours Thesis is usually done in the second semester of a student’s registration in the Honours Degree Programme.
Strand: Non-stranded (from Cohort 2014)
Pre-requisite for TS4401: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 110 units including 40 units of TS major requirements with a minimum SJAP of 4.00 and GPA of 3.50, or with recommendation by the programme committee.
Preclusion for TS4401: TS4660, TS4401HM, TS4660HM
Pre-requisite for TS4401HM: Cohort 2016 to Cohort 2020: Completed 110 units including 44 units of TS major requirements with a minimum SJAP of 4.00 and GPA of 3.50, or with recommendation by the programme committee.
Preclusion for TS4401HM: TS4660, TS4401, TS4660HM
Note: Please register for the Honours Thesis manually with the Department.
Documents containing important information on the Honours Thesis should be downloaded from “Documents and Forms.”
The Independent Study course is designed to enable the student to explore an approved topic within the discipline in depth. The student should approach a lecturer to work out an agreed topic, readings, and assignments for the course. A formal, written agreement is to be drawn up, giving a clear account of the topic, programme of study, assignments, evaluation, and other pertinent details. Head’s and/or Honours Coordinator’s approval of the written agreement is required. Regular meetings and reports are expected. Evaluation is based on 100% Continuous Assessment and must be worked out between the student and the lecturer prior to seeking departmental approval.
Strand: Non-stranded (from Cohort 2014)
Pre-requisite for TS4660: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 100 units, including 40 units in TS, with a minimum GPA of 3.20.
Preclusion for TS4660: TS4401, TS4660HM, TS4401HM
Pre-requisite for TS4660HM: Cohort 2016 to Cohort 2020: Completed 100 units, including 44 units in TS, with a minimum GPA of 3.20.
Preclusion for TS4660HM: TS4401, TS4660, TS4401HM
Note: Please register for the Independent Study manually with the Department.
Documents containing important information on the Independent Study should be downloaded from “Documents and Forms.”
LIANG Peilin
This course provides a broad-based critical and methodological foundation for advanced research in theatre and performance. Taking one example from each of three aspects of performance a script, a live performance, and a media/cultural performance the course trains students to examine and compare the critical positions and questions posed by a range of theoretical texts with different approaches, priorities and methodologies. Core topics are the mutually transformational modalities of textuality and performativity, live and mediated performance, and non-traditional critical and performance practices. Students are guided in formulating a research proposal and project, which forms the main coursework component.
Independent research plays an important role in graduate education. The Independent Study course is designed to enable the student to explore an approved topic in Theatre Studies in depth. The student should approach a lecturer to work out an agreed topic, readings, and assignments for the course. A formal, written agreement is to be drawn up, giving a clear account of the topic, programme of study, assignments, evaluation, and other pertinent details. The Head's and/or Graduate Coordinator's approval of the written agreement is required. Regular meetings and reports are expected. Evaluation is based on 100% Continuous Assessment and the balance of written and other components must be worked out between the student and the lecturer prior to seeking departmental approval.
Note:
(1) Word limit: 4,000 – 6,000 words, the lower limit being permissible only where the project involves a substantial amount of practical work, and is agreed with the supervisor.
(2) Workload: Minimum 10 hours per week. The precise breakdown of contact hours, assignment and preparation is to be worked out between the lecturer and the student, subject to Departmental approval.
Independent research plays an important role in graduate education. The Independent Study course is designed to enable the student to explore an approved topic in Theatre Studies in depth. The student should approach a lecturer to work out an agreed topic, readings, and assignments for the course. A formal, written agreement is to be drawn up, giving a clear account of the topic, programme of study, assignments, evaluation, and other pertinent details. The Head’s and/or Graduate Coordinator’s approval of the written agreement is required. Regular meetings and reports are expected. Evaluation is based on 100% Continuous Assessment and the balance of written and other components must be worked out between the student and the lecturer prior to seeking departmental approval.
Note:
(1) Word limit: 6,000 – 8,000 words, the lower limit being permissible only where the project involves a substantial amount of practical work, and is agreed with the supervisor.
(2) Workload: Minimum 10 hours per week. The precise breakdown of contact hours, assignment and preparation is to be worked out between the lecturer and the student, subject to Departmental approval.
Courses offered in AY2023/2024 Semester 2
Maiya MURPHY
This course will provide students with foundational knowledge of the different aspects of, approaches and discursive contexts relating to the study and praxis of theatre and performance. The course will also introduce students to the various forms of classical and contemporary performance practices and their attendant modes of analyses: combining play analysis, theatre history & theory. Using complementary content-centred lectures and practice laboratory, the course creates an environment where students simultaneously engage with course content while investigating its relations to the creation of theatre and performance.
Strand: Non-stranded (from Cohort 2014)
Pre-requisite: Exempted from NUS Qualifying English Test, or passed NUS Qualifying English Test, or exempted from further CELC Remedial English courses.
Alvin LIM
This course introduces traditional Asian drama and staging—the combination of dance, music, masks, acting codes—and ways in which they inform contemporary creative practices. Students will compare traditional forms across geographies, analyse scripts, and create short, devised performances during practical sessions. This course provides the vocabularies to understand South and East Asian theatres as they evolve. Students will learn how Asian traditions have a place in contemporary life. Students interested in Asian studies, Chinese studies, Japanese studies, and keen to apply concepts from Asian performance forms to a spectrum of creative and professional work will benefit from this course.
Strand: Timeframes (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Framing Histories (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: Nil
Maiya MURPHY
Actors and their craft stand at the centre of many theatrical traditions. Yet what is acting is, and who actors are, remain subjects of intense fascination, which continue to be explored in live performance, as well as through writings by practitioners, scholars and critics. This course combines practical workshops and critical reading to explore diverse approaches to acting and to investigate the role and status of the actor within the art form of theatre, and in society at large. Focusing on actor development and the process of acting, assessment tasks highlight the importance of participation, reflection and presentation.
Strand: Perspectives on Performance (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Researching Performance (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: Nil
Graham WOLFE
This course focuses on the close reading of dramatic texts in order to study the dynamic relationship between text & performance. Through the examination of 4 major modern playwrights working in different historical, geographical and cultural contexts, this course will explore the development of modern drama in the twentieth-century, the significance of text as the basis of theatrical realisation, the variety of staging possibilities engendered by the dramaturgy of the play-text, and the synergistic partnership of word and action in creating the huge variety of text-based theatre in the twentieth-century.
Can be read by EN students in fulfilment of EN major requirements at Level-2000, as a recognised course
Strand: Timeframes (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Framing Histories (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: TS1101E or EN1101E
Edna LIM
This course focuses on the conventions of a variety of film genres and styles, ranging from Hollywood and Chinese cinemas to Bollywood and animation. It traces the development of each genre, examining its defining characteristics, the role and influence of the star system and individual stars such as actors and directors, and its relations to other film styles and industries. Through a group creative project, students will make a film that involves the practical application of critical ideas.
Strand: Timeframes (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Framing Histories (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: Nil
Robin LOON and THONG Pei Qin
Units: 8
The final practical project in the Theatre Studies curriculum provides students with a structured and guided opportunity to research, develop and produce an original performance piece. Working in a group under the supervision of a guest director, students conduct independent contextual research and contribute creatively to the collaborative process. The performance will be shown to a public audience, and each student will offer a research presentation analysing the process, choices and outcomes of individual work in the context of the group project. This is an essential course for Theatre Studies major students, taken in Year 3 of a student’s enrolment.
Strand: Perspectives on Performance (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Researching Performance (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: TS major students who have completed a minimum of 80 units.
Note: Non-TS major students should not access this module.
LIANG Peilin
Interaction between cultures is an indispensable part of our everyday life. Its dynamics become especially visible on the stage. In this course we will study ‘intercultural theatre’–a way to create theatre that combines different theatrical forms and cultures. Students will watch recordings of intercultural theatre, read critical essays, and engage in a creative project to gain a vocabulary in describing how these dynamics may operate in our lives. Some ideas that we will discuss include adaptation, cultural ownership, and ‘borrowing’. This course will particularly benefit students interested in cultural exchange, Asian performances, and social aspects of performances.
Strand: Cultural Practices (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Cultures in Practice (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite: TS1101E
THONG Pei Qin
This course offers students a way to approach theatre and performance through the matrix of gender. Students will be exposed to selected discourses on feminism, masculinity, transgenderism. This course will focus on the issues of language, body, theatricality and performativity and explore how the gender discourses can inform the students’ engagement with these issues, particularly in relation to aesthetics and embodiment. Incorporating a critical, examination of selected play-texts, this course will lead students to develop a project where they can either construct a creative response to a play or a devised reflection on their process of researching gender in theatre.
Strand: Cultural Practices (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Cultures in Practice (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite for TS4216: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 80 units, including 20 units in TS.
Preclusion for TS4216: TS4216HM
Pre-requisite for TS4216HM: Cohort 2020 and before: Completed 80 units, including 28 units in TS, with a minimum GPA of 3.20 or be on the Honours track.
Preclusion for TS4216HM: TS4216
YONG Li Lan
This course provides a study of how the literary and performance traditions associated with Shakespeare’s work are mobilised and transformed by the visual cultures of contemporary cinema. Through the intersections between the mediums of the dramatic text, theatre and film, the course examines central issues that shape Shakespeare’s currency and circulation in the cinema: the values attached to authenticity and performance traditions, the Shakespearean actor, the appropriation and parody of the “universality” of Shakespeare, and the transformation of the meaningfulness of his plays through visuality and spectacle.
Strand: Perspectives on Performance (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Researching Performance (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite for TS4220: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 80 units, including 20 units in TS or 20 units in EN
Preclusion for TS4220: TS4220HM
Pre-requisite for TS4220HM: Cohort 2019 and before: Completed 80 MCs, including 28 MCs in TS or 28 MCs in EN or 28 MCs in EU/LA (French/German/Spanish)/recognised modules or 28 MCs in GL/GL recognised non-language modules, with a minimum CAP of 3.20 or be on the Honours track.
Cohort 2020: Completed 80 MCs, including 28 MCs in TS or 28 MCs in EN or 28 MCs in EU/LA (French/German/Spanish)/recognised modules, with a minimum CAP of 3.20 or be on the Honours track.
Preclusion for TS4220HM: TS4220
LIANG Peilin
This course trains students to become independent performance-based researchers in applied theatre. Students will develop their creative and critical skills in designing, facilitating applied theatre workshops, and in using applied theatre as a research methodology. To consolidate students’ skills in integrating practice with theory, students will undertake Practice as Research projects of considerable scope with the social and cultural complexity of specific communities and contexts in mind. Applied theatre as a form of social intervention, problem solving, community engagement, and knowledge production will be examined.
Strand: Perspectives on Performance (Cohort 2014 to Cohort 2018) /
Researching Performance (Cohort 2019 onwards)
Pre-requisite for TS4222: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 80 units, including 20 units in TS.
Preclusion for TS4222: TS4222HM, TS4222A, TS4222AHM
Pre-requisite for TS4222HM: Cohort 2020 and before: Completed 80 units, including 28 units in TS, with a minimum GPA of 3.20 or be on the Honours track.
Preclusion for TS4222HM: TS4222, TS4222A, TS4222AHM
TS4401 (8 units)
TS4401HM (15 units)
The Honours Thesis is usually done in the second semester of a student’s registration in the Honours Degree Programme.
Strand: Non-stranded (from Cohort 2014)
Pre-requisite for TS4401: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 110 units including 40 units of TS major requirements with a minimum SJAP of 4.00 and GPA of 3.50, or with recommendation by the programme committee.
Preclusion for TS4401: TS4660, TS4401HM, TS4660HM
Pre-requisite for TS4401HM: Cohort 2016 to Cohort 2020: Completed 110 units including 44 units of TS major requirements with a minimum SJAP of 4.00 and GPA of 3.50, or with recommendation by the programme committee.
Preclusion for TS4401HM: TS4660, TS4401, TS4660HM
Note: Please register for the Honours Thesis manually with the Department.
Documents containing important information on the Honours Thesis should be downloaded from “Documents and Forms.”
The Independent Study course is designed to enable the student to explore an approved topic within the discipline in depth. The student should approach a lecturer to work out an agreed topic, readings, and assignments for the course. A formal, written agreement is to be drawn up, giving a clear account of the topic, programme of study, assignments, evaluation, and other pertinent details. Head’s and/or Honours Coordinator’s approval of the written agreement is required. Regular meetings and reports are expected. Evaluation is based on 100% Continuous Assessment and must be worked out between the student and the lecturer prior to seeking departmental approval.
Strand: Non-stranded (from Cohort 2014)
Pre-requisite for TS4660: Cohort 2021 onwards: Completed 100 units, including 40 units in TS, with a minimum GPA of 3.20.
Preclusion for TS4660: TS4401, TS4660HM, TS4401HM
Pre-requisite for TS4660HM: Cohort 2016 to Cohort 2020: Completed 100 units, including 44 units in TS, with a minimum GPA of 3.20.
Preclusion for TS4660HM: TS4401, TS4660, TS4401HM
Note: Please register for the Independent Study manually with the Department.
Documents containing important information on the Independent Study should be downloaded from “Documents and Forms.”
Edna LIM
In recent years, the vitality and currency of Asian cinema has resulted in texts that can no longer be viewed as merely artefacts of a particular culture or nation. This course looks at how film industries in Asia have engaged with global cinema through various forms of negotiations that assert, compromise or consume national, cultural or conventional distinctions. We assess the implications of a conglomerate Asian cinema by examining the current trend of transnational Asian films, the translatability of conventions and adaptability of ideas within Asia itself as well as between Asia and dominant cinemas like Hollywood.
YONG Li Lan
Shakespeare is by far the most produced and adapted western playwright in East Asian theatre cultures. Approaches to translating, performing and re‐writing his plays have changed over time, and are now at their most diverse and experimental. Correlatively, connections and relationships between Asian and Anglophone performance histories have also matured. Using translated and annotated archival recordings, this course examines the historical contexts and theatrical concerns of East Asian Shakespeare performances, relating them comparatively to Anglophone and European textual and performance histories. It is jointly taught by NUS and The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham as a distance learning course.
Independent research plays an important role in graduate education. The Independent Study course is designed to enable the student to explore an approved topic in Theatre Studies in depth. The student should approach a lecturer to work out an agreed topic, readings, and assignments for the course. A formal, written agreement is to be drawn up, giving a clear account of the topic, programme of study, assignments, evaluation, and other pertinent details. The Head's and/or Graduate Coordinator's approval of the written agreement is required. Regular meetings and reports are expected. Evaluation is based on 100% Continuous Assessment and the balance of written and other components must be worked out between the student and the lecturer prior to seeking departmental approval.
Note:
(1) Word limit: 4,000 – 6,000 words, the lower limit being permissible only where the project involves a substantial amount of practical work, and is agreed with the supervisor.
(2) Workload: Minimum 10 hours per week. The precise breakdown of contact hours, assignment and preparation is to be worked out between the lecturer and the student, subject to Departmental approval.
Independent research plays an important role in graduate education. The Independent Study course is designed to enable the student to explore an approved topic in Theatre Studies in depth. The student should approach a lecturer to work out an agreed topic, readings, and assignments for the course. A formal, written agreement is to be drawn up, giving a clear account of the topic, programme of study, assignments, evaluation, and other pertinent details. The Head’s and/or Graduate Coordinator’s approval of the written agreement is required. Regular meetings and reports are expected. Evaluation is based on 100% Continuous Assessment and the balance of written and other components must be worked out between the student and the lecturer prior to seeking departmental approval.
Note:
(1) Word limit: 6,000 – 8,000 words, the lower limit being permissible only where the project involves a substantial amount of practical work, and is agreed with the supervisor.
(2) Workload: Minimum 10 hours per week. The precise breakdown of contact hours, assignment and preparation is to be worked out between the lecturer and the student, subject to Departmental approval.
YONG Li Lan
This is a required course for all research Masters and PhD students admitted from Sem 1 of AY2009/2010. The course provides a forum for students and faculty to share their research and to engage one another critically in discussion of their current research projects. The course will include presentations by faculty on research ethics and dissertation writing. Each student is required to present a formal research paper. Active participation in all research presentations is expected. The course may be spread over two semesters and will be graded "Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory" on the basis of student presentation and participation.