Yale-NUS College offers two independent minors that include a strong language component. These are Chinese Studies (which requires extensive learning of Chinese) and Global Antiquity (which requires learning of at least one classical language, whether Latin, Greek, or Sanskrit)
Chinese Studies
The minor in Chinese Studies is interdisciplinary and designed to foster an in-depth understanding of China, both as an historical tradition and as a modern nation with a wide-ranging sphere of influence. Central to the minor is the belief that an informed knowledge of Chinese language, literature, culture, and history is essential to a proper understanding of the Chinese world today (inclusive of the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and ethnic Chinese populations in Singapore and elsewhere), and that, conversely, educated cognisance of the political, economic, environmental, and demographic issues currently facing the Chinese world are no less vital to us in our roles as informed global citizens. The minor thus offers a range of coursework in both the Humanities and Social Sciences designed to expose students to a wide array of disciplinary vantage points from which to study China, both past and present, and to provide them with the necessary skills so that they are able to do so with competence and a growing level of expertise.
Global Antiquity
The minor in Global Antiquity offers students the opportunity to create an individualised course of study on ancient societies, the development of “Classical” traditions, and their continuing cultural significance. Ancient societies in South Asia, ancient China, the Mediterranean, and the near East developed the enduring paradigms of thought that structure our ways of understanding the world, but the sophisticated works of our ancestors deserve more than mere reverence. The study of antiquity requires an interdisciplinary array of scholarly approaches to interpret the fragmentary sources (textual and material) that remain today. At the heart of all these methodologies is a strong foundation in ancient languages to engage with cultures in their own linguistic form. In designing a course of study, students are encouraged to seek unexpected connections across regions and periods, to think historically, and to view antiquity as dynamically transforming and globally interconnected through multiple forms of intercultural contact. This minor will complement majors in related fields such as Arts and Humanities, History, Literature, and Philosophy by deepening intellectual contexts and scholarly approaches to ancient thought and culture.
