2007-09-05

Tutorial Sign-up

I will start the POLI0019 tutorial sign-up, which is done online through the HKU portal system, next week, after the lecture on Wednesday, 12 September. There will be five 50-minute sessions available on Wednesdays to be run by Mr Wong. The venue will be Meng Wah Complex, room 624. We expect about 10 people in each section. If you absolutely must get in a particular time slot and fail to do so, we should be able to work something out.

POLI0068 IBGM students will all be in one tutorial on Wednesdays from 11.40 am to 12.30 pm. The venue will be Theatre 5, though I may shift it if the theatre arrangement does not prove conducive to discussion.

Course Syllabus and Lecture Schedule

I've posted the course syllabus and lecture schedule below. I predated the postings so they would appear at the bottom of the blog. Please ignore the formatting errors. I will try to resolve those in due course.

Our WebCT Course Page, the Readings and Other Matters

Thanks for joining us this morning!

I understand that some students are wondering about accessing the WebCT page of the course and the readings available on it. There are some technical difficulties that we need to sort out. You may be able to access the POLI0019/POLI0068 WebCT course from last year (First Semester 2006). If so, a number of the readings are already posted there and available. We are trying to create a duplicate of the pages so we can keep the 2006 version intact but use it as a platform to create the 2007 version. The PPA Department's IT expert is trying to sort things out and we will let you know when everything is arranged.

Meanwhile, for the first two weeks, don't get too concerned about the readings. As I mentioned, I consider the lecture and guest speaker discussions, as well as the tutorials, to be of more importance. The readings will serve to give you some background on these issues, particularly if you are not from Hong Kong. For those of you who are new to Hong Kong, please take a look at some of the suggested readings for Week Two, as well as the Basic Law. For those who wish to prepare for the session with Dr Malik Peiris on SARS and the avian flu, I have asked the PPA Department (Room 622, Meng Wah Complex) to hold the relevant chapters on reserve. BTW, I added Chapter 14, which I neglected to include in the syllabus. If the reading gets too technical, don't worry about it. Again, I don't expect you to be so thorough with the readings. Consider them resources to help you be better prepared to approach a topic.

I should also note that the book East Asia and Globalization is available in the library.

Next Wednesday, I will again give an introduction to the course (a shorter one) before Dr Peiris and my other guest, Wayne Arnold of the New York Times, arrive. Meanwhile, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me - reyes@hkucc.hku.hk. I will be in Dalian for the rest of the week but will be checking email regularly.

I am posting the syllabus and lecture schedule on this blog. If for some reason, you don't see it and would like me to email them to you, please let me know.