Singapore

This module is designed to provide a basic introduction to data science along with real examples and case studies from both academic and industrial sources, in areas as diverse as finance, biological sciences, physics and pharmacy.

Information and Communication Technologies are tools used in commerce, education, and interpersonal interactions. But these technologies also pose serious risks to national, economic, organizational and personal security. This course seeks to provide students with an understanding of the illegal activities threatening ICTs and the countermeasures that government and organisations are developing.

The course will first introduce students to the various cyber threats and then will cover legal and technological countermeasures.

Important: This is NOT a technical course! The focus of the course is on policy and ethical considerations as governments and other institutions try to address the threats posed by ICT or comptuer-related crimes.

This course will introduce students to the fundamental principles of copyright law in the field of new media. The module will focus on copyright issues as they apply to content producers confronted with ongoing technological developments in information and communications technologies. It will review copyright issues from a socio-economic, legal and policy perspective, and will cover issues such as fair-use exceptions, the open-source movement, digital rights management and anti-circumvention and peer-to-peer file sharing.

Our aims in this module are twofold: to provide students with a good introduction to business history as a field of study and to explain the development of Singapore, from its early settlement years to the present from the perspective of business history.

Students will:
Gain a good understanding of Singapore's history, with a strong business/economic focus.
Become familiar with many leading business figures and the history of firms and products that are household names in Singapore.
Be encouraged to think critically about how and why Singapore's business developed in a particular manner from 1965 onwards.
Be able to develop a better appreciation of business and heritage issues. For instance, why are 'heritage brands' increasingly popular? And how has the history of early business been represented in our museums?

What is piracy and how can we define it?
Why are pirates such romanticised figures?
Why does piracy still persist in modern times?
This module will address these questions and many more relating to violence at sea and the evolving history of pirates.

Piracy, understood broadly as forms of violence or crime at sea, is a present day phenomenon and yet one which has a history spanning centuries and across all the oceans of the world. From pirates to privateers, corsairs to raiders, maritime predators take various names and forms. This module explores the history of pirates and piracy. By examining case studies from the 1400s onwards and by placing pirates into the context of oceanic history and maritime studies, students will be able to demystify the popular images often associated with pirates.

This is an introductory module about post-1945 Singapore history. It addresses Singapore's emergence from British colonial rule, merger with Malaysia to independence and nation building. We approach this history in two ways — chronologically and thematically. Students will first be introduced to key events, episodes and issues between 1945 and 1965, after which we will discuss central themes related to nation-building such as political economy, diplomacy and security, housing, families and morality, religions and secularism, multiracialism and education, and civil society. Students will be exposed to, and are encouraged to discuss and think critically about, a broad range of topics within the historical framework of nation-building in Singapore. The module is tailored for students from all faculties.

This module surveys the history of modern Japan from the late-Tokugawa period to the present. Its primary goal is to promote basic understanding of major events in modern Japan, while also aiming to analyze the history of Japan in transnational and comparative contexts through exploring a number of common themes in the 19th and 20th centuries global history: nation building, colonialism, and total war and occupation, as well as the Cold War, student movements, developmentalism, globalization, and grassroots conservatism. Through such examination, the module aims at promoting critical thinking concerning diverse historical interpretations and controversies. Accordingly, students will be exposed to a broad range of historical debates and viewpoints throughout the module.

During the reign of Queen Victoria, Britain underwent dramatic change in nearly every sphere; its economy became substantially linked to its imperial interests. London, Liverpool and Glasgow were centres of commerce and shipping connecting a vast network of British interests worldwide. It is during this era that the British empire arguably reached its zenith as 'an empire on which the sun never set...'

Victoria’s proclamation as Kaisar-i-Hind or ‘Queen Empress of India’ in 1877 solidified the British Raj and was a reflection on India’s importance in the British world-system. The expansion of Empire was not however, without resistance and conflict; during the semester we will examine case studies from India and Africa as instances where conflict was seen as defining British imperial interests. Governing the empire was a balancing act where diplomacy and ritual held sway but sometimes the use of brute force was regarded the 'only way forward' for imperial interests...

We will ask:
What are the key characteristics of the British empire in the Victorian era?
How did Victorian Britons view their Empire? And what did it mean to be a colonial subject?
How did the British reinforce and ‘demonstrate’ their imperial power?
What are the legacies of the Victorian era?

In answering these questions, this module explores the political, economic, social and cultural aspects of empire during the Victorian era and reflect on how this detailed study can develop our understanding of modern imperialism.
Through themes such as: frontiers, propaganda, gender and race, we will also think about the way that empire served to shape Britain itself.

What made Europe modern? How did Europe shape modernity? And, finally, what happened to the visions, dreams, nightmares, and expectations of European modernity?

This module is an introductory survey that provides an overview of the major events, actors, and developments that have shaped the course and character of Europe from the French Revolution to the outbreak of World War I. We will take a ‘big picture’ view of the historical development and experience of Modern Europe, discussing political, social, cultural, economic, intellectual, and military themes. We will investigate the emergence of mass political movements, nationalism, industrialization, and imperialism to help us understand the changes that took place between the early-modern and modern periods.

This module examines the ways popular culture shapes understandings of history on two different levels. First, it examines how the popular culture of a specific era can reveal much of the social milieu of the time and help contextualise events of that period. Second, it will examine how popular culture, such as a film, created at a later time can influence perceptions about an earlier era. This module will examine instances and eras of popular culture to discuss the challenges of deriving historical knowledge from popular culture. Each iteration of the module may vary in its focus. This semester the module will focus on American society in the late 1960s, and examine the topic mainly through films