Organisation of the Module

The module is divided into three units. In the first, Defining and Understanding Vice, we will consider the questions of what vices are, why people engage in them, and how and why states and civil society try to define and manage these various forms of behaviour and the social problems they can create. The written assignment for the first unit is a short response to a close reading of a primary source such as a newspaper opinion piece or a poster from a public awareness campaign. 

In the second unit, Vice, Social Attitudes and State Policies – Case Studies and Theories, we will consider how historians and social scientists have sought to study vice and responses to it in the past through looking at selected secondary sources covering a variety of different countries and cultures. We will also examine a number of primary sources and consider the ways they might be used to construct arguments. The written assignment for the second unit is a literature review in which you will summarise and evaluate theoretical ideas and case studies related to a specific vice in order to identify gaps in the academic literature that need filling, findings that might be applied in a different context and arguments that can be challenged.

In the third unit of the module, Researching Vice, the State and Society in Singapore, we will focus on how attitudes and policies towards vices have evolved in Singapore since the colonial period, when the British tolerated and taxed opium but sought to prohibit gambling, through to the present day, when the government draws significant revenue from

gambling and alcohol but has banned various narcotics. For the final written assignment, you will write an argumentative essay, based on primary sources, in which you will evaluate how a particular vice has been managed by different Singaporean governments or civil society organisations at a certain point in time and consider what this reveals about the relationship between the state and society in Singapore. You will also do a conference-style presentation of your findings to your fellow students and then be expected to incorporate their feedback into your final paper.

Rhetorical Overview

Writing is the culmination of an intellectual process that involves a range of other activities encompassing reading, thinking and researching. This module is designed to take you through all the parts of this process. To do this, we will read different types of texts – ranging from academic studies and government reports to newspaper opinion pieces and public awareness campaign materials – to see how writers formulate their arguments and use evidence and reasoning to support them. In your initial written assignments, you will then consider and critique their rhetorical strategies and argumentation. In the latter part of the module, we will visit, both online and in person, the National Archives of Singapore and the Singapore/Malaysia Collection in the Central Library of NUS so that you can learn how to access and utilise archival holdings. You will then use some of the primary sources you find in your final assignment.

While the act of writing is a solitary practice, the intellectual process of which it is a part is a social one as scholars debate and review each other’s ideas. As such, this class will mainly be conducted in a seminar-style in which you are expected to participate actively through discussing the arguments and methodologies of the assigned texts and the draft work of your fellow students. The occasional mini-lecture will give you the necessary information to contextualise the readings and locate your own ideas in the relevant academic literature.

As scholars who are part of a wider world, it is important that you learn how to apply your academic skills to the issues faced by societies in the twenty-first century. In the final assignment, therefore, you will be encouraged to use some of the lessons you have learned about the management of vices in the past to make suggestions about how Singapore might deal with related social problems in the present day.

Assignment Overview

Please note that the precise deadlines for each assignment will be confirmed at the start of the semester.

Paper 1 – Close reading of self-selected primary source – 800-1000 words (15 percent)

· Due date of first draft for peer review – Week 3

· Due date of draft for conference – 24 hours after peer review

· Due date for final draft – Week 5

Paper 2 – Literature review of secondary sources – 1700-2000 words (25 percent)

· Due date of first draft for peer review – Week 7

· Due date of draft for conference – 24 hours after peer review

· Due date for final draft – Week 9

Paper 3 – Argumentative essay based on multiple primary sources – 2500-3000 words (35 percent)

· Due date of first draft for peer review – Week 11

· Due date of draft for conference – 24 hours after peer review

· Due date for final draft – Week 13

Presentation of Paper 3 – A short (5 minutes) presentation of your argument for paper 3, followed by a Q&A (5 percent)

· Due date – Week 13

The remaining 20 percent of your final mark is based on your Classroom Participation, which will be measured by your contributions to in-class discussions and group activities, posting and responding to discussion questions on LumiNUS, and your feedback during the three peer review sessions for each assignment.

Readings

The main texts that we will be using for the rhetorical aspects of the class are: Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. Fitzgerald. The Craft of Research, 4th ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016; and Gordon Harvey, Writing with Sources: A Guide for Students, 3rd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2017.

The topical readings for the module change from semester to semester so the following list is just a sample of the type of readings covered.

Primary Sources

Campbell, J. G. D. Siam in the Twentieth Century: Being the Experiences and Impressions of a British Official, 144-151. London: Edward Arnold, 1902.

League of Nations, Commission of Enquiry into the Control of Opium-Smoking in the Far East. Report of the Council, Volume I: Report with Comparative Tables, Maps and Illustrations, Extracts. Geneva: Series of League of Nation Publications, 1930.

Raffles, T. S. “Minute by the Lieutenant Governor.” In Memoir of the Life and Public Services of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles: Particularly in the Government of Java, 1811-1816 and of Bencoolen and its Dependencies, 1817-1824, Sophia Raffles, Appendix pp. 66-69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013 [1830]. 

Secondary Sources

Chin, Ko-lin. Going Down to the Sea: Chinese Sex Workers Abroad. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2014.

Courtwright, David T. Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World, 166-186. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Geertz, Clifford. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, 412-453. New York: Basic Books, 1973.

Gusfield, Joseph R. “Moral Passage: The Symbolic Process in Public Designations of Deviance.” Social Problems 15, no. 2 (Autumn 1967): 175-188.

Heath, Dwight B. “An Anthropological View of Alcohol and Culture in International Perspective.” In International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, edited by Dwight B. Heath, 328-347. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995.

Jolin, Annette. “On the Backs of Working Prostitutes: Feminist Theory and Prostitution Policies.” Crime & Delinquency 40, no. 1 (January 1994): 69-83.

Pasuk Phongpaichit, Sungsidh Piriyarangsan and Nualnoi Treerat. Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja: Thailand’s Illegal Economy and Public Policy, 215-231. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1998.

Warren, James A. Gambling, the State and Society in Thailand, c.1800-1945, 137-148. London: Routledge, 2013.

Warren, James Francis. Rickshaw Coolie: A People’s History of Singapore, 1880-1940, 236-257. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Willoughby, W. W. Opium as an International Problem: The Geneva Conferences, Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1925.