All History majors are required to complete a capstone project in history in order to graduate from Yale-NUS. The purpose of the capstone project, a year-long undertaking, is to provide History majors with the opportunity to conduct original research. The final product may take the form of a traditional academic dissertation or a non-traditional project. The precise nature of the project is to be determined in consultation with the major advisor.

By the end of Semester 2 in their third year of study, students would have conducted preliminary discussions with prospective supervisors to discuss what they wish to work on for their capstone project.

In Semester 1 of their fourth year of study, students will take the History Capstone seminar, which is compulsory for History majors and graded. It is intended to provide a structure for preparing the History capstone project, which is worth 10 Modular Credits (MC).

Most students will be working towards a dissertation of 9,000 to 11,000 words in length, including endnotes/footnotes, but excluding abstract, table of contents, appendices and bibliography. For those who wish to work on non-dissertation-based work, there should still be a written component of at least 4,500 to 5,500 words, including footnotes, but excluding bibliography. Although it is ultimately the decision of the student to pursue the dissertation or the non-dissertation route, students who wish to pursue graduate studies at a future date are strongly encouraged to opt for the dissertation route.

Capstone Seminar in Semester 1:

The capstone seminar is intended to be a highly interactive learning environment, where students share work in various stages of progress with fellow students. In order to make each seminar meaningful, students must come prepared with a substantial amount of independent work before they attend the seminar. ‘Behind the scenes’ independent work would consist of: developing timeline for their projects, building up an annotated bibliography, allocating time to undertake primary sources research, notetaking of archival research, planning outline for the project (chapter breakdowns, etc.), and writing a literature review of the topic.

In the seminars, students are expected to share their work with fellow capstone students. This will entail developing effective oral presentation skills in order to communicate research findings.

By the end of Semester 1, students are expected to have completed the annotated bibliography, a draft literature review, completed most of their primary source research, and have a first outline of their project (breakdowns of chapters, with some description of what will be included in these chapters) in place. In the last seminar, each student will be asked to do a 10-minute presentation on their progress-to-date. The seminar includes a Q&A session from the audience, which comprises students and History faculty.

Independent Capstone Work in Semester 2:

In Semester 2, students will be working mostly with their supervisor through independent work. There will be an additional meeting of capstone students organised by the capstone coordinator in the middle of the semester as a progress-to-date session. Moreover, the capstone coordinator will have individual meetings with capstone students in Semester 2 for a one-to-one discussion on their projects, and above all, to ensure that enough progress is being made.

To get a sense of past History capstone projects, this is an indicative list of the wide range of topics studied by our former students:

• Reimagining the Chinese Nation: Wartime History and Class Nationalism in Cultural Revolution Model Operas
• All Quiet on the School Front: Government Chinese Middle Schools in Singapore, 1956-1965
• Of One Spirit: Transnational Solidarity in North Vietnamese Propaganda Posters, 1965-1975
• Messianism in Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities
• Fashioning Mobility: The Working Woman and the Commodification of Femininity in 18th-Century London
• A Cigarette History: Smokers in Society in Singapore’s Anti-smoking Campaign, 1979-87
• ‘For to Such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven’: Youth PCOs and Evangelical Growth in Singapore, 1965-78
• Beyond the Plate: The Social and Political History of Chinese Restaurants in Post-War Singapore
• Divining Histories: Turtleshell and Milfoil Divinations as Motifs and Allegories of Decline in The Grand Scribe’s Records
• Tantra Below the Winds: The Transgressive King and His Precursors
• Filial Sons and/or Patriotic Sojourners:  Life and Concerns of the Overseas Teochew Migrants in Their Remittance Letters