Program Overview

University Programs

The university offers a range of programs, including undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education options.

Academic Programs

• Undergraduate programs
• Graduate programs
• Continuing education (SUTD Academy)
• 42 Singapore

Pillars, Clusters, and Programmes

The university is organized into several pillars, clusters, and programs, including:

• ASD: Architecture and Sustainable Design
• DAI: Design and Artificial Intelligence
• EPD: Engineering Product Development
• ESD: Engineering Systems and Design
• HASS: Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
• ISTD: Information Systems Technology and Design
• SMT: Science, Mathematics and Technology

Course Details

One of the courses offered is "02.219TS Rice Cultures: Technology, Society and Environment in Asia". This course:

Overview

Introduces students to the social scientific study of human-environment interactions through the history and culture of rice.

Learning Objectives

• Analyse and debate the extent to which natural environments shape human societies, and/or human societies shape natural environments
• Explain the theory and model of agricultural modernization, and compare this model with the actual histories of technological development in rice cultures
• Define, discuss and explain how rice agriculture influenced the history and culture of Asian societies
• Define the principle of human-environment sustainability and experiment with applying this principle to critically examine design practice and technology development

Measurable Outcomes

• Analysis of relations and interactions between human societies and natural environments in written essay
• Application of key concepts from reading to other rice cultures or other human-environment interactions in group presentation
• Illustrate and interpret the origins and causes of a problem of unsustainability afflicting a contemporary rice culture (social, environmental, political, or other) in a final research paper

Learning Assessments

• Final paper
• Group presentation
• Mid-term paper
• In-class participation
• Reading responses

Course Map

The course is divided into four units:

• Unit 1: Origins
  • The ecological approach in anthropology
  • Biology of rice, culture and environment
  • Origins and domestication of wild rice
  • Interaction between rice domestication and culture
• Unit 2: Consumption
  • Cultural ecology and cultural materialism
  • Food taboos
  • Symbols and symbolic analysis
  • Food and identity
  • Social structure and meal patterns
  • Nutrition and meal patterns: core-fringe hypothesis
• Unit 3: Production
  • Political ecology
  • Agricultural involution
  • State space
  • The black rice debate and labour
• Unit 4: Sustainability
  • Ritual technology
  • Modernization and ecological collapse
  • Green Revolution
  • Systems modelling
  • Sustainability

Instructor

The course is taught by Lyle Fearnley.

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This course aligns with the following UN SDGs:

• Goal 2: Zero hunger
• Goal 3: Good health and well-being
• Goal 15: Life on land

Tags

The course is classified as an Elective/Technical Elective and falls under the HASS category.