TEACHING

Fall 2015

Phil 273 Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy [Creativity and Transformation]

This course takes us through selections from a range of 20th C continental thinkers: Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Marcuse, Foucault, Irigaray and Derrida - from phenomenology to deconstruction - pursuing the theme of creativity and transformation. The idea is that philosophy is centrally about seeing things differently, changing ourselves, and changing the world. My premise is that philosophy has never been more important, because 'we canot go on like this'.

Spring 2015

Phil 326 Heidegger's Being and Time

This course is devoted to a transformative reading of Heidegger's classic work Being and Time in the light of its critics and our contemporary concerns. Heidegger himself moved on from Being and Time but it remains one of the most influential books of 20th C philosophy, and the questions it raises are still alive: human temporality, earth and world, the question of the animal, being towards death, and the de(con)struction of the western metaphysics.

Phil 273 Environmental Philosophy
Man's' place in Nature has been discussed since the beginning of human history. We are ourselves natural beings: we eat, drink and breathe to stay alive, and we are also mortal, vulnerable and sexual beings. But as well as our human nature, there is Nature without, Nature outside. Nature sustains (natural resources) and threatens (natural disasters). The explosive growth of technology has lead to a sharpening of these tensions. Pollution, world hunger, global warming, nuclear waste and other hazards threaten to turn the earth from a paradise (?) into a hell – the "late great planet earth". Major ethical and broader philosophical problems are raised by this crisis: animal rights, sustainable development, species preservation, biodiversity and so on. We think of Nature as 'out there', but the shape of this 'out there' is determined by our images and theories of Nature, shaped throughout history by religion, art, myth and philosophical reflection. Contemporary radical movements – including ecofeminism, land ethic, deep ecology and Occupy - have sought to reshape these images. This course will provide a basis for critical reflection on these vital questions.