CURRICULUM INNOVATIONS
New USP module incorporating joint sessions with Yale University
USP offered a new module “Religions in the Contemporary World” for the first time in Semester 1 AY2009-10. This module develops a nuanced understanding of multifaceted expressions of religiosity in the contemporary global context, appropriately grounded in a historical perspective. It explores various socio-cultural, political, economic and technological forces and processes that impact the manifold expressions and manifestations of religion in different societies, and vice-versa. It was co-taught by two faculty members (one from Department of Sociology and one from Department of Philosophy) with guest speakers from different departments, and possibly external organizations.
This multidisciplinary module gives students insight into religions and globalization, and also provides students with a “mediated” form of global education. For the first run, two sessions were shared with Yale University students taking a parallel module on “Faith and Globalization”. Mr Tony Blair, from The Tony Blair Faith Foundation, participated in one of the two shared sessions. There were opportunities for students to work with their counterparts at Yale University through discussion forum and by email correspondence.
To find out more about the module, please click here.
New USP module with a multicultural and archaeological dimension
USP offered a new module “Sinbad, Shipwrecks and Singapore” in Semester 1 AY2009-10. It was taught by a faculty member from the Southeast Asian Studies Programme who is also an archaeology expert in the field. In 1998, a shipwreck was discovered near Belitung Island, south of Singapore. This is the most important underwater site yet found in Southeast Asia. As part of the module, students will have an opportunity to handle artifacts from this and other archaeological sites. In addition, they will be exposed to modes of historical inquiry (primary and secondary sources); learn how to integrate data from the perspectives of the humanities, social sciences and hard sciences; draw inferences from fragmentary data as well as apply critical thinking to various explanations for the Tang cargo and similar finds; and become aware of the interaction of culture, religion, and economics in shaping historical events. The module will also be complemented by a study display at the NUS Museum.
To find out more about this module, please click here.
New USP module investigating the micro-choreography of person-to-person interaction
USP offered a new module “Ethnomethodology: The Semiotics of Everyday Life” in Semester 1 AY2009-10. This Advanced level module will examine the many critically important – but rarely overtly remarked upon – practices of verbal and non-verbal behavior that human beings regularly employ in their face-to-face interactions with one another in order to together construct an world of shared meaning. Rigorously empirical and devoted to a scientific explication of the precise ways in which participants in everyday interaction use the body positioning, eye-gaze, hand and head gestures, timing, vocal contour (prosody), and even the inanimate artifacts of the immediately shared surround in order to coordinate the kind of micro-synchronized choreography needed for real-time face-to-face interaction, this module will train students in the videotaped collection, fine-grained transcription, and ethnomethodological analysis of the naturally occurring data of everyday human interaction. Following the two public guest lectures recently presented by UCLA ethnomethodologists Profs. Charles and Marjorie Harness Goodwin at USP, this module will be taught by one of their former students, who is now a faculty member of the USP Writing and Critical Thinking Programme.
To find out more about this module, please click here.
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