News
In the age of AI, the humanities and social sciences are becoming more, not less, essential
The rise of artificial intelligence has often been framed as a challenge to the humanities and social sciences. But speakers at “Future Horizons: Envisioning the Humanities and Social Sciences”, recently organised by the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) as part of the Ideas Festival Singapore 2026, argued the opposite: That a world transformed by AI will need these disciplines even more urgently than before.
Read More
2026 Distinguished Arts and Social Sciences Alumni Awards Honouring graduates who have dedicated their lives to the arts, diplomacy and social services
The awards, held on 1 April, honoured three distinguished alumni whose careers have shaped the arts, diplomacy and communities: Ms Lim Hai Yen (English Language and Chinese Studies ’92), Mr Ashok Mirpuri (Political Science Hons ’84), and Ms Ang Bee Lian (Social Work ’77). Though their careers have unfolded in very different arenas, they share a common thread: a commitment to serving society and shaping the world around them.
Read More
NUS leads Asia in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026
Achieves strongest performance to date, with all-time high of seven NUS subjects ranked among the global top three and a record 28 subjects in the global top 10.
Read More
NUS Open House 2026: From the future of learning to the pulse of student life
Prospective students turned out in force for the NUS Open House 2026, one of the University’s largest events of the year, with some 21,500 visitors packing University Town on 7 March for a first-hand look at the University’s distinctive academic programmes and its vibrant campus community.
Read More
Colliding Asias (Crazy Rich Asians as Novel, Film, Adaptation, and Singapore)
The Crazy Rich Asians film, which premiered in August 2018, was a watershed moment for the representation of Asian stories in Hollywood. Based on the bestselling 2013 novel by Singaporean author Kevin Kwan, the film adaptation quickly became a global phenomenon, marking a shift in the landscape of mainstream cinema, where Asian stories and voices were traditionally underrepresented or relegated to harmful stereotypes. While the film garnered immense success and attention, it also faced scrutiny for its portrayal of Asian characters. In “Colliding Asias — Crazy Rich Asians as Novel, Film, Adaptation, and Singapore”, a chapter in The Routledge Companion to Global Literary Adaptation in the Twenty-First Century (Routledge, 2023), Dr Edna Lim (NUS English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies) examines Crazy Rich Asians as a film adaption in its own right, rather than its relationship with the novel. Through what she terms as the “collision of Asias”, Lim examines the intersection of different Asian identities and perspectives in the Crazy Rich Asians film, and how the film constitutes a wholly different performance of the Crazy Rich Asians story. Crazy Rich Asians has elicited a range of incongruous responses, with some lauding it as a breakthrough Hollywood production featuring an all-Asian […]
Read More
New Centre for Computational Social Science and Humanities at NUS to advance interdisciplinary research on complex societal challenges
By combining technological innovation with human insight, the Centre for Computational Social Science and Humanities (CSSH) aims to generate research that improves lives, strengthens institutions, preserves cultural knowledge, and shapes more inclusive and resilient societies in Singapore and beyond.
Read More
NUS students bridge generations through dance and dialogue
Innovative courses empower students to connect with older adults, fostering well-being and building vibrant communities through hands-on projects.
Read More
Teaching with heart: The human side of higher education
Organised by the NUS Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT), the Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2025 on 10 December 2025 gathered educators from universities across Singapore to explore how to enrich learning experiences.
Read More
Metaphors and Metonymies of Food in Four Asian Texts
From Murakami’s simple egg salad sandwiches in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to the apples in Orwell’s Animal Farm, food has long served as a powerful metaphor and metonymy in literary fiction. In ‘Metaphors and Metonymies of Food in Four Asian Texts’ (Anthropocene Ecologies of Food, 2022), Associate Professor Chitra Sankaran (NUS English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies) explores how four Asian works — Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting, Vida Cruz’s Song of the Mango, Michele Cruz Skinner’s Mango Season, and Wayne Ree’s Satay — use food to highlight the identities of the people and their communities. These four contemporary texts from India, Singapore, and the Philippines explore the making and eating of food, as a reflection of the diverse cultural connotations surrounding nourishment. In Desai’s Fasting, Feasting, the dietary habits of Indians and Americans are contrasted, offering insights into the cultural significance of food in these societies. On the other hand, Cruz and Skinner, centre their narratives on a fruit, the mango, but diverge in their approaches. While Cruz weaves a mythical tale of warring clans over a mango tree, Skinner presents a family drama in Mango Season, showcasing how the mango is deeply embedded in both cultures’ histories. Ree’s Satay is […]
Read More