Author Archives: Caroline Lewis

Welp, this is it. The final blog post in my semester-long series on the nation-state of Singapore. I really enjoyed learning about the world this semester in Think Global 3510HW. I got to listen to so many interesting speakers from so many different backgrounds. It was fun to learn so much about Singapore, a countryContinue reading “Post Eight”

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, biopolitics is defined as “politics concerned with influencing environmental public policy and decision-making”. French philosopher and social theorist Michel Foucault is widely associated with this term and he claims that “biopolitics deals with the population, with the population as a political problem, as a problem that is at once scientificContinue reading “Post Seven”

Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Žižek analyzes blockbusters in his 2013 documentary The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology. “The tragedy of our predicament when we are within ideology is that when we think that we escape it into our dreams at that point we are within ideology.” – Slavoj Žižek, 2013. Žižek compares ideology toContinue reading “Post Six”

Climate change has everything to do with human rights. It impacts some of our most essential rights to health, to food, and to a decent standard of living (Greenpeace). The rising heat is the cause of many natural disasters, with droughts and floods ruining the agricultural output for many struggling nations. Tiny impoverished island nations suchContinue reading “Post Five”

Climate change is a longstanding global issue that has been devastating our ecosystems and our communities, yet today it is garnering more attention than usual. As of November 2019, Climate.gov states that “Global mean sea level has risen about 8–9 inches (21–24 centimeters) since 1880, with about a third of that coming in just theContinue reading “Post Four”

Merriam-Webster defines nationalism as “loyalty and devotion to a nation”, and even goes as far as to describe it as “exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups”. In Singapore, nationalism depends greatly on the ChineseContinue reading “Post Three”

“A different language is a different vision of life.” Federico Fellini Singapore is a multicultural country that has four official languages in its constitution: Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and English. Singapore also has an unofficial English-based creole language called Singlish. It contains Asian slang vocabulary from Malay, Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, and Tamil. The 2011 census statesContinue reading “Post Two”

Singapore’s GDP grew only 0.7% in 2019, which is a major decrease from 2018’s 3.1% growth rate according to Asia Times. While this isn’t necessarily scary for Singapore as they continue to be an Asian economic power house, it could have some effect when it comes to the Singaporeans’ decision to keep their rulers inContinue reading “Post One”