For AY2021/2022 onwards, the Tembusu College curriculum includes one course on Ideas and Exposition. For the cohort AY2020/2021 and before, the Tembusu College curriculum includes two courses on Ideas and Exposition.
These courses are taught by professional writing instructors with advanced degrees attached to the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC). The courses are designed to enable students to produce expository writing, and increase general understanding of a given interdisciplinary topic.
All I&E courses help students to produce expository writing that readers will recognise as increasing their understanding of a given topic and will help students learn and apply five core strategies that underlie successful scholarly research and writing. For further details please take a look at the CELC page for Ideas & Exposition Courses.
The courses are graded but students may choose to exercise the pass / fail option. Completing QET requirements is a pre-requisite for reading I&E courses.
Innovation,’ ‘growth’ and ‘development’ are some buzzwords shaping our understanding of social realities. What do they reveal about the values upheld in modern consumer societies? In this module, we examine how themes like competition, self-responsibilization, self-accountability, rational profit-and-loss thinking and the constant impetus towards self-improvement operate as predominant frames in the conduct our daily lives. We explore how the identities and ideas of living in modern market-driven societies are constructed in relation to consumer lifestyles, sport, life-long learning and public housing. Students will develop writing skills enunciating varied points of view and arguments associated with the topics discussed
National identity is an integral part of who we are. Yet, it remains a highly disputed concept. This course will problematize key theoretical debates by exploring Singapore’s national identity and examining how Singapore and regional countries have been shaped by interaction with colonialism and beyond. Drawing on a Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA), which allows us to analyse image and text interactions, we explore how national icons are created in public media and ask the question of how national identity still remains a powerful and emotional entity that rallies or divides people of different ethnicities, religious, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.
What should be the reach of the arms of the law? Most find it unproblematic if a state punishes distributors of child pornography; but what if the punitive muscle of the state is also used to enforce public morality? Can the law intrude on the private lives of citizens? Should euthanasia be legal? In this module we shall be putting these and other pressing issues that are at the centre of political debate to critical enquiry. This module will appeal to students interested in the study of applied ethics, the criminal law, public policy and socio-political theory.
Cyberbullying, cyber-racism, online falsehoods. These are some of the phenomena that can be observed online. In an era of overwhelmingly diverse viewpoints within social media platforms, how has digital communication shaped and changed the way we communicate and respond to each other as human beings? Have we compromised more than we have gained? Drawing upon perspectives from various disciplines, this course helps students explore how opinions and ideas are formed, debated and transmitted in an age where human interaction is constantly mediated by technology.
This writing course considers the eternal question of what it is to be human in relation to the possibilities of transforming ourselves through genetic, neuro-cognitive or cybernetic technologies. How significantly would individuals, populations or the entire species have to be changed to warrant use of the term “posthuman” in describing them? How desirable would it be to transcend certain of our current limitations or to acquire wholly new capabilities? In small interactive classes, students will explore these questions through critical examination of viewpoints expressed in both scholarly literature and imaginative media, ultimately developing their own positions in written arguments.
The internationalisation of higher education (IHE) is evident all around us: international students, faculty, researchers; twinning, exchange, offshore programmes; and the list goes on.But amidst the ever-changing landscape, benefits and challenges of IHE (Knight, 2013), how has internationalisation impacted higher education? How have, say, academic mobility and cross-border alliances influenced students, institutions, countries and the world? What are its implications for cultural and academic values? In this module, we will examine the contexts of IHE, compare different case studies in various settings and analyse the controversies of marketisation, language/cultural attrition, global citizenship, etc.
Human behaviours are complex. Individuals’ intrapersonal and interpersonal social skills could affect how well they function in a society. This course will allow students to examine psychosocial and sociocognitive theories that explain intrapersonal and interpersonal social skills which are defined as 21st-century competencies. Students will evaluate the appropriateness/effectiveness of intrapersonal skills such as the self-concept/image, self-regulated learning and maintaining intellectual openness, and interpersonal skills such as team cooperation/collaboration, conflict management, and leadership in educational, political and business settings. By the end of this module, students should be able to critically analyse and develop awareness of essential social behaviours and skills.
In an era of instant digital mass communication, the scientific and technological ideas disseminated via mainstream news, entertainment, social media and other online platforms may result in the sharing of contagious narratives which are not necessarily consistent with the underlying science. Such narratives can affect public attitudes and behaviour, often with far-reaching social and economic consequences. This course aims to evaluate some of these narratives to enable students to determine the degree to which they represent scientific ‘truth’. By the end of the module, students should be in a better position to engage with media representations of science in general.
How do we raise questions about our collective responsibility as a species towards our planet? How do we deliberate about uncertainty regarding climate change’s effects? In this course, we discuss issues ranging from Siberian fires to climate refugees to investigate how some perspectives of the climate crisis become salient and prominent while others are silenced in dynamic socio-political environments. By analysing the discourse of an article and examining its presentation, we understand the ‘spin’ on a particular perspective. We then investigate what makes some of these perspectives popular ways of understanding the climate crisis, while others are absent.
The term, Diaspora, originally referred to the forced dispersal of Jews from Israel, and connoted loss of homeland. Now, it is applied to people who have moved away from homeland and live elsewhere. Studies have shown that such movements have displaced people and led to a loss of identity for them. By engaging with issues of diasporic movements, the students will learn to view global identities in insightful ways and be enabled to empathetically evaluate identity formations. Using the framework of hybridity, the course explores diasporic displacement from an interdisciplinary perspective to understand complex meanings of home, belonging and identity.
This course aims to develop the ecocritical* awareness essential for understanding and navigating cities in an age of climate crisis. Students of this course will focus on reading, thinking and writing ecocritically about urban development in Singapore and other cities in Southeast Asia where urban development has displaced nature and wildlife. This will involve employing close-reading strategies traditionally employed in literary analysis to read stories, poetry, movies, paintings and photographs alongside historical, geographical, and psychological accounts that examine urbanisation and its effects on the human and nonhuman inhabitants of cities. *Ecocriticism, which is committed to examining the relationship between humans and nonhumans, has its roots in literary studies. As a discipline, ecocriticism has expanded beyond Literature and includes a range of diverse disciplines including the environmental science, history, geography, sociology, psychology and politics.
Is it wrong for eight men to have as much wealth as 3.6 billion people? If so, what should we do about it? This course offers a deep dive into the nature and ethics of wealth inequality. It has two parts. We first address a theoretical question: When, if ever, is inequality morally wrong? This lays the foundation for the second part, where we examine the causes and consequences of wealth inequality, along with possible responses. The aim is to critically examine our attitudes and policies as we strive for a just and practical distribution of wealth.
This course discusses the nature of oratory and how it potentially influences the public mind, that is, how the public perceives, understands, and acts upon social and political realities. Students will be introduced to ways of critically analysing speeches as they interrogate the power and limitations of oratory in influencing audiences. Students will consider the following questions: What elements in the speeches enable speakers to ‘adjust ideas to people and people to ideas’? How do speeches shape and are shaped by their contexts? How are ideas expressed in the speeches transformed to create impact on the public mind?
Students will explore how a language is shaped by the culture in which it is used and how it in turn shapes its users’ views of other cultures. They will investigate the culture-specific aspects of language, how they colour speakers’ worldviews, and how differences in worldviews may lead to intercultural misunderstanding. Students will develop reasoned positions on particular issues in intercultural communication and formulate arguments to defend their points of view. The focus will be on English and Singlish but other varieties of English and other languages will be used for comparison.
Venturing into space, the most hostile of extreme environments, poses a host of complex and unusual challenges to human well-being. Through examination of the physiological, psychological and social factors that astronauts must contend with, students will engage with the ethical questions that confront governmental and private agencies when sending men and women into space. Before selecting specific ethical questions to explore in their research papers, students will also examine the motivations (scientific, commercial, political) behind different kinds of space mission and consider the moral obligations humankind may be under with regard to the exploration and potential exploitation of extraterrestrial environments.
We live in a time characterized by an intensified awareness of risk. Our perception of risk, whether related to new technology or social activity, is greatly influenced by how mass media represents it. Taking prominent social theories of risk as its critical frame of reference, this course will explore the role of news, television shows, popular fiction and films in shaping public opinion on, and responses to, potential and presumed threats. These range from environmental pollution, pathogens and medical procedures to terrorism, cybercrime, immigration/immigrants and un(der)employment. Case studies may include Fukushima, Chernobyl and the Y2K phenomenon.
Vampire literature has undergone a twenty-first Century resuscitation, evident in novels such as Twilight and television series including The Vampire Diaries and True Blood. But how similar are these vampires to the traditional vampire in Western and other cultures? In this module you will explore different explanations for the role/function of the Vampire and have the opportunity to research manifestations of the Vampire across cultures, genres and historical periods. You will review different research methodologies, and compile a list of terms and ideas that enable you to participate in the conversation to understand the ongoing fascination with the Vampire.
Involvement in professional and amateur sports through competition, ludic activity or spectatorship is a social experience and thus connected to larger social and cultural formations. Students will engage with sociological research and develop their own critical positions grounded within functionalist, interactionist or critical theory frameworks in one of three areas: (1) Socialisation into sport; what factors may influence initiation and continuation? (2) Socialisation out of sport; in particular what are the causes and effects of burnout or retirement in competitive sport? (3) Socialisation through sport; how are dimensions of identity (embodiment, gender, race, social class) developed?
Science fiction is less about the future than it is about the present. Many science fiction narratives critique contemporary social issues, particularly imperialism and colonialism. This course will introduce students to the theories of colonialism and their importance in a modern context. Armed with this knowledge, students will engage with classic and contemporary science fiction texts in order to understand, as well as question, how such narratives describe and proscribe ways of ordering the world. In developing their original research projects, students will explore how this intersection between popular narrative and ideology influences many of the ways we think about culture today.
It is often assumed that there is a common understanding of what specific words mean. However, can one assume a common understanding across cultures of words describing colour, such as ‘red’ or ‘maroon,’ or emotion, such as ‘happiness,’ ‘pleasure,’ or ‘disgust’? Are forms of address, such as nicknames, or interjections, such as ‘damn’ or the ‘F’ word, used in similar ways across cultures? Are there differences between the ways that speakers of different varieties of English understand the meanings of such words? This module explores how meaning is culture-bound, and helps students understand cultural differences in the choice and use of words.
Citizens participate in society through discourse — talk and texts. How citizens speak and write about social issues in face-to-face and online platforms therefore warrant careful reflection. This course aims to enable students to examine how individuals enact their citizenship through language and other symbols. Students will investigate how citizens mobilize language, voice, body and other resources to deal with issues pertaining to social differences, processes of exclusion, and participation in local, regional and global contexts, among others. By the end of the module, the students should be able to develop critical awareness of how civic discourse shapes public issues.
This module explores how online interactions foster collective identities premised on real/imagined social, economic and political injustice. The 20th century generated identity politics, with its focus on a shared loss of dignities resulting from prolonged colonial or imperial oppression. Evolving political and social settings gradually led to movements centred around distinct group identities (feminist movements, civil rights movements etc.). Advancements in digital communication in the new millennium have led to new variants of online collective identities. This module will examine how virtual identity politics is impacting offline politics, and demanding changes to socio-economic and political landscapes both locally and globally.
Colour is key in visual communication. In this module, students will engage with the topic from a social semiotics and multimodal perspective to explore how colour meanings, for example ideational, interpersonal and textual, are created and interpreted. Students will develop a research paper around an artefact of their choice from fields such as marketing, design, visual and performing arts or their discipline, to examine how colour conveys meanings and/or how these colour meanings are perceived in the community. Through their project, students may explore a range of social issues related to, for example, gender and race.
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