Common Core
Our Centre is currently offering four Common Core courses for undergraduate students from ALL faculties.
CCCH9018 Buddhism and Chinese Culture
Description:
This course is designed to help students to understand Chinese culture and its Buddhist influences. For over two thousand years, Buddhism has interacted with all levels of Chinese culture such as literature, philosophy, mores and behavioural norms, arts and architecture, and religions of all classes. As a result, Buddhism has become one of the three pillars of traditional Chinese culture and its influence is seen in many aspects and at all levels of Chinese culture. The aim of the course is to enhance students’ intellectual understanding of Chinese culture, way of life, and belief through historical analysis and theoretical enquiries into the key aspects of China’s long interaction with Buddhism. Attention will be paid to the open attitude of both Buddhism and Confucianism as a basis for integration and mutual assimilation. Topics include: Buddhist impact on Chinese culture; intellectual exchange between Buddhism and Chinese culture; Buddhist and Chinese attitude to life: A comparative study; Buddhist and Chinese ethics of filial piety; Buddhism and Chinese visual art; Chan and Chinese culture; Buddhist influence on Chinese language and literature; Buddhist influence on religions and popular beliefs; Guanyin belief in Chinese life. Lectures are organized in such a way as to first introduce students to the philosophical traditions and their thoughts, with follow-up discussions on specific topics.
Category:
China: Culture, State & Society
Course Co-ordinator:
Dr. Guang Xing
Please visit HERE for more information.
CCCH9044 Dunhuang and the Silk Road: Art, Culture and Trade
Description:
The Silk Road has long linked the West with China and one of its principle sites is the Cave of Dunhuang. Both Dunhuang and the Silk Road have long been dynamic places for the creation and transmission of diverse cultural content that can be studied from the perspectives of travelers, art and architecture, languages, and many different religious traditions. The Cave’s long and cosmopolitan history has, in fact, become the subject of a distinct academic field known as “Dunhuangology.”
How does the art and culture of Dunhuang reflect the cross-cultural features played out in the geographical and sociopolitical contexts of the Silk Road? And how can we understand the importance of preserving such a cultural heritage for future generations, even as the concept of the Silk Road is now being renewed and transformed? This course will adopt interactive teaching approaches to stimulate students’ knowledge of this rich heritage and will also enable students to gain a broader view of Chinese culture and civilization from the Cave of Dunhuang across the commercial and cultural exchanges passing along the Silk Road. Major analytic tools such as stylistic analysis, epigraphy and archeological evidences, etc., drawn from different academic disciplines, will be discussed in the course to illustrate how to find out the purposes of and the skills in creating those artifacts unearthed.
The theme-based lectures, which will include reflection and interactive exercises, will be structured around three interrelated topics: 1) the role and influence of Dunhuang on the Silk Road and vice versa, 2) the material, artistic and intellectual cultures along the Silk Road, and 3) the value of cultural heritage and memory as we move into the future. Learning activities will be designed to support and enhance the students’ experience of the course content and learning objectives.
Category:
China: Culture, State & Society
Course Co-ordinator:
Dr. Chung-hui Tsui
Please visit HERE for more information.
CCCH9066 Buddhist Art and Cultural Integration in Asia
Description:
Visual art has long played a central role in conveying Buddhist teachings. As Buddhism spread across Asia, symbolic art forms emerged to enrich rituals, meditation practices, and spiritual growth. The transmission of Buddhism to China during the Eastern Han dynasty not only reshaped Chinese spirituality but also profoundly influenced the country’s cultural and artistic development. This course explores the historical origins, evolution, and cultural impact of Chinese Buddhist art. Through the analysis of artifacts discovered along Silk Road routes, we explore how the spread and adaptation of Buddhism are reflected in these cultural treasures. By examining religious monuments, artifacts, sculptures, and paintings, we trace the interactions between ancient material cultures—Greco-Roman, Persian, Indian, Central Asian, and Chinese—and their contributions to the development of Buddhist artistic expression.
The course is divided into two parts: Part 1 (Lectures 1-6) focuses on Indo-Chinese cultural exchange through six key themes, while Part 2 examines China’s influence on Buddhist art across Asia, including South Asia, Southeast Asia, Japan, Korea, and Tibet. Designed to foster a dynamic learning experience, the course encourages students to explore the connections between Buddhist art, mindfulness, and cross-cultural exchange. Students will learn to apply traditional aesthetics to modern life and reflect on their role in spiritual practice and mindful living.
[A half-day compulsory field trip will be arranged during Reading Week.]
Category:
China: Culture, State & Society
Course Co-ordinator:
Dr. Chung-hui Tsui
Please visit HERE for more information.
CCHU9062 Buddhist Visions in World Cinema
Description:
Film is a universal medium that mirrors, documents and recreates moral, aesthetic, and spiritual sensibilities and experiences. It cuts across space, time, culture and language and marks their boundaries. It is an ideal platform for exploring how Buddhism envisions ethical ways of living and how it responds to wider questions such as: What is the relation between mind and body? Truth and illusion? Death and beyond? During this course we will explore how films produced in the East and West possess the power to bring to life existential themes, philosophical questions, and contemporary beliefs. Through an analysis of vision, sound, narrative, silence, and symbolism, we will gain a greater appreciation of Buddhist visions in World Cinema.
Category:
Arts and Humanities
Course Co-ordinator:
Dr. Jnan Nanda
Please visit HERE for more information.
CCHU9086 Understanding Religious Worlds
Description:
What sort of a thing is religion? What patterns are common to all religions? What interpretive tools are most appropriate to explore this subject matter? Scholars in Comparative Religion think that the answers to these questions lie in the rich diversity of world history. They find varying historical, social, and cultural contexts exhibit religious behaviour in which human beings construct and inhabit “religious worlds,” with the aim of giving life meaning and direction. In this course, following a historical and comparative perspective, we will attempt to “understand” this global human activity, “religion,” taking individual religions as distinctive “religious worlds.” We will explore these religious worlds through their common structures and cultural expressions such as myths, rituals, sacred space, pilgrimage, holy beings and holy communities, and their variations. Finally, we will work together to explore and appreciate the role of religion as a historical and contemporary force that has shaped our societies and institutions across geographies and histories.
(Non-Permissible Combination: CCHU9014 Spirituality, Religion and Social Change)
Category:
Arts and Humanities
Course Co-ordinator:
Dr. G.A. Somaratne
Please visit HERE for more information.
CCHU9093 Everyday Ethics and the Moral Imagination
Description:
Ethics is often imagined as a matter of grand dilemmas or abstract rules. But ethical life is also woven into the fabric of the everyday—in the choices we make, the people and beings we care for, and the ways we relate to others across lines of difference. This course invites students to think deeply about the ethical dimensions of ordinary life, asking how we experience, express, and negotiate moral concerns in diverse social and cultural contexts. We will explore how individuals and communities use their moral imagination—the human capacity to respond ethically, creatively, and flexibly—to navigate dilemmas, question inherited norms, and envision more just or compassionate futures.
Drawing on anthropology, psychology, philosophy and literature, we will examine how ethical perspectives shift over time and across cultures, how certain beings come to be seen as “moral others,” and how empathy, care, and conflict animate moral change. In the second half of the course, we turn to the moral challenges posed by encounters with non-human others—including animals, unseen beings, and machines—and explore how these relationships stretch our moral horizons.
Students will bring theory into conversation with lived experience through a collaborative video essay project combining fieldwork, storytelling, and analysis to explore ethical questions. By the end of the course, they will have a toolkit for critically and imaginatively engaging with ethical life and a deeper understanding of how moral boundaries are shaped, challenged, and reimagined in our changing world.
Category:
Arts and Humanities
Course Co-ordinator:
Prof. Catherine Hardie
Please visit HERE for more information.
CCAI9001 Brain, Buddhism, and AI
Description:
What makes us human in a world of artificial intelligence? How do our brains compare to machines, and can ancient wisdom help us navigate the future? This course bridges neuroscience, AI, and Buddhist philosophy to explore mind, identity, and ethics in the digital age. The course starts with the basics: How does the brain work? What is consciousness? Could AI ever truly “think”? Then, we’ll dive into deeper questions—Will AI change what it means to be happy or loved? How do we stay human in a world of algorithms? The course then progresses to explore core human values, focusing on potential existential anxiety, identity crises in future generations, and the meaning of life, love, and happiness. In tutorials, students will engage in hands-on activities through creative learning experiences such as brain-computer interaction, data processing, comparing AI counselling with human counselling, and practising compassion meditation. Students can have a field trip to witness the latest AI technology, to use AI to enhance human attention, and to integrate humans and AI for hybrid intelligence. Ultimately, students can develop transdisciplinary AI expertise while fostering critical thinking, lifelong learning capabilities, and ethical awareness necessary to engage thoughtfully with the emerging impacts of AI.
[There will be an optional field trip to the Shenzhen University Campus during Reading Week for exposing students to the latest technological advancements including brain-computer interface (BCI), brainoid, and other AI advancements.]
Category:
Artificial Intelligence
Course Co-ordinator:
Dr. George K.C. Lee
Please visit HERE for more information.
For more information about common core courses, please visit HERE.