Category Archives: Alumni

[Discussion Forum] The Relevance of Philosophy in the Corporate World (Fri, 13 Jan 2012, 5.30pm, AS7 Sem Rm A-C)

Posted on by

The Philosophy Interest Group and the Philosophy Department will be organising a discussion forum on the Relevance of Philosophy in the Corporate World on Friday, 13 Jan 2012 (Week 1), from 5.30pm to 7.30pm at AS7 Seminar Room A-C. Two philosophy alumni, Ms Kris Teo and Mr Shaun Oon, have been invited to share their experiences in the corporate world.

Kris Teo first joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs China Desk. Deciding that politicking was not her cup of tea, she went on to SATS (then under the Singapore Airlines Group) to HR Learning and Development. She then made a move again in early 2010 to A*STAR, first handling scholars and scientific leadership development, then to HR Policy and Planning. Having trodden the corporate path earlier than the audience, Kris would be sharing candid experiences of making the transition from studies to work, expectations of “what is” versus “what ought to be”; from a philosophy graduate point of view. She would also be glad to offer career advice from a HR perspective.

Shaun Oon is currently working as a Policy Officer in the Arts and Heritage Division of the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts (MICA), under the Management Associate Programme. He is assigned to oversee policies involving our libraries, language campaigns, arts education pathways (including SOTA, NAFA and LASALLE), and arts infrastructure (including the Esplanade). He is also involved in the formulation of the new arts and culture Masterplan, the Arts and Cultural Strategic Review, which aims to lay the foundations for our arts and culture development until 2025. Between the time of his graduation and when he first startedwork in the civil service, he spent months unemployed. Shaun hopes to share with you how you might avoid that experience.

Dinner will be provided for attendees. To register, please mark your attendance on the Facebook event (please visit: http://goo.gl/SVawA) or by contacting Jonathan (e-mail: jsim@nus.edu.sg / handphone: 81571575).

Continue reading →

Anantharaman Muralidharan

Posted on by

B.Sc. Hons, NUS; Email: a0030974-at-nus.edu.sg; Degree: MA

murali-anna-2About Himself: My thesis is concerned with trying to find a more general justification for the Rawlsian framework. I am interested in broadly trying to derive and defend a free-standing theory of justice. At the same time I am interested in democracy and justifications for it. I am also interested in social epistemology and its implications for democracy.

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences students get $250,000 endowed gift to support the Chew Teck Neo Bursary

Posted on by
RESOURCEFUL AND ENTERPRISING: Mdm Chew Teck Neo

Resourceful and Enterprising: Mdm Chew Teck Neo

THE FAMILY of the late Mdm Chew Teck Neo has made a $250,000 endowed gift to support a bursary in her honour at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS). The gift towards the Chew Teck Neo Bursary will attract a dollar-for-dollar matching grant from the Singapore Government. It will support up to six bursaries of $3,000 annually. All eligible FASS students can apply for the bursary, but preference will be given to those studying Philosophy. Continue reading →

Alumni Publication (Alvin Lim)

Posted on by

Alvin Lim obtained his BA (Hons) in 1999, and MA in 2002 from the Department of Philosophy. He is currently a Ph. D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He has recently published an article in the Journal Theory & Event.

“Breakfast with the Dictator: Memory, Atrocity, and Affect.” Theory & Event 13, no. 4 (2010).
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v013/13.4.lim.html

Lawrence Santiago – Reason and Passion: How NUS Philosophy Shaped my Thinking About the World

Posted on by

The following is a letter from Lawrence Santiago, who received his MA in Philosophy from NUS in 2007.

Exactly two years ago, I was interviewed in Montreal, Quebec, Canada for the Trudeau Scholarship. The Trudeau Scholarship is Canada’s most highly coveted doctoral scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences. The scholarship competition is open for Canadian students studying in universities in Canada and abroad as well for non-Canadians studying in Canada. Some claim that it is Canada’s answer to the Rhodes or Fulbright Scholarships. To get the scholarship, one has to be nominated by the candidate’s research supervisor, then by her Department, and finally by her University. By a stroke of luck and hard work, I was sent by my home university, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and was eventually chosen by external and selection committees of the Trudeau Foundation to be among the final 25 for an interview. I was finally chosen to be part of the final 15, the only non-Canadian in my cohort as well as the first to come from a Singaporean institution of higher education in the history of the scholarship.

In the morning of my interview, I put aside all my nerves and decided to leave the interview process to fate. After all, just to arrive at that stage was enough confirmation that I have an intellectual project worth pursuing. A panel of 4 interviewed me: there were 3 senior academics from a wide range of fields outside my specialization, a historian, a sociologist and a lawyer, as well as 1 leading Canadian journalist. During my interview, I was asked many questions about my personal and academic background. I was very clear to them that I came from Asia, and particularly, educated in the Philippines and Singapore. Then, they asked me the most challenging question: exactly how my academic background that is mostly in philosophy (at this stage, they have read my file well!) can enable me to do my research project informed by the methodologies and theories of the social science discipline I was enrolled in, human geography. They also asked me whether I would pursue this project normatively or empirically. Continue reading →

The Kent Ridge Common: An Open Letter From a Philosophy Alum

Posted on by

The following is an open letter from one of our philosophy alumni, Lester Lim, about his experiences, from Kent Ridge, to Illinois, and back again, starting The Kent Ridge Common:

Through my experience from a semester of exchange at the University of Illinois during President Obama’s electoral campaign in 2008, I saw how a vibrant university culture could not be possible without the presence of an active student voice. This active student voice, in part, was largely supported by an independent student-led news publication, The Daily Illini. The Daily Illini was the the University of Illinois’ news daily – a news publication that was supported by external investors, but ran exclusively by the university students. No issue was too big or too small for The Daily Illini to report on; it was the pivotal centerpiece of everything and anything that happened on campus. If something happened on campus, one can almost be sure that the daily would be there to report it to the student population the very next day. But more importantly, the publication also engaged the students very directly to canvas their opinions on a large variety of issues that was of concern to them – the ambit stretched from political to economic and social issues that affected the larger community they were living in. The students had a voice, and the daily acted as a taintless mirror to reflect their views. Continue reading →

New publication by Philosophy Alumnus Dr. Steven Burik

Posted on by
THE END OF COMPARATIVE AND THE TASK OF COMPARATIVE
THINKING.
HEIDEGGER, DERRIDA, AND DAOISM
By Steven Burik, who graduated with his PhD from the National University of Singapore,
NUS in 2006. He teaches philosophy at Singapore Management University
and also at the Center for American Education, Broward College, Singapore.

End of Comparative Philosophy CoverThe End of Comparative and the Task of Comparative Thinking: Heidegger, Derrida, and Daoism, by Steven Burik (SUNY Press, 2009)

Steven Burik graduated with his PhD from the Department of Philosophy, National University of Singapore in 2006. He now teaches philosophy at Singapore Management University and at the Center for American Education, Broward College, Singapore.

More information about the book and its author can be found in the .pdf flyer.