PHIL 106 - Philosophy & Contemporary Issues

Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2023/24a and b: Love & Sex. This course focuses on contemporary and perennial questions about love and sexuality. What is love, and why are our romantic relationships so important to us? Are friendships and romantic relationships really that different? What, if any, is the relationship between love and sex? Are our current norms and practices surrounding sex good ones to have, or are there other ways we should be approaching sexuality? We explore topics such as romantic love, friendship, the nature of sex and sexuality, sexual ethics, taboos, and sexual identity through student-led discussions and deep engagement with philosophical texts. Rebecca Harrison.

Topic for 2023/24a and b: Philosophy & Technology. (Same as STS 106) This course studies the origins and development of the concept of technology. Beginning with its origins in ancient Greece, we trace the concept’s development during the industrial revolution, and conclude with contemporary reflections on the philosophy of technology. We read a range of different authors, but particular attention is placed on the accounts of technology proposed by Karl Marx and Martin Heidegger. Emphasis throughout is placed upon argumentative rigor, clarity, and precision. Jamie Kelly.

Topic for 2023/24a: Incarcerating Philosophies. This introductory philosophy course examines the topic of “incarcerating philosophies”. Philosophy is used as a justification to incarcerate (as both aiding incarceration, and as reason for incarceration), and it is also itself incarcerated. This course offers a philosophical and historical survey of the relevant literature in order to ask the following questions: What are the different methods and rationalities employed in order to incarcerate, and how are these methods used to fashion the incarcerated, criminal body? How have Western philosophical programs and approaches, figures and texts responded to such incarcerating methods in order to question and oppose them critically and immanently? Readings include: Plato, Jeremy Bentham, Martin Luther King Jr., Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière, Angela Davis, Lisa Guenther, Achille Mbembe, and Frank Wilderson III. Osman Nemli.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS