Jina Fast

The meaning of race has been scrutinized across philosophical traditions and subdisciplines. Philosophers have asked questions such as the following: What is race/what does it mean in contemporary societies? What roles does race play not only in social and political domains, but also in individual modes of embodiment, identity, and self-consciousness? How does whiteness exist as an unacknowledged norm in philosophical thinking and society, and how can this norm be critically reassessed and overcome? How are race, racialization, and racism phenomenologically experienced? In what ways is racism coded into cultural and political forms of power in contemporary societies? In law? In the valuing of citizenry and life? How do conceptions and experiences of race differ across cultures? This survey course will examine the metaphysical, ontological, and epistemological issues that are generated by our concepts of race and racism. Keywords:Philosophy, Critical Theory, Racism, Anti-Racism, Black feminist Theory

Students will examine contemporary moral issues and the methods of philosophic thought and will discover the place and influence of philosophy in life today as they increase their ethical awareness and identify their own beliefs and values as well as understand the foundation(s) for those values. This course will provide an overview of the history of philosophical analysis of moral dilemmas arising in professional and public settings and enable students to develop independent project based study of an ethical issue and/or issue related to the common good. This course fulfills the project requirement for Division II. Keywords:Philosophy, Applied Ethics, Research Methods, Social and Political Thought

Nanny Share:Supporting Local Families

Employs an intersectional philosophical approach to the study of human sexuality. Specific topics include ethical, epistemological (knowledge), and political questions related to sexual orientation, lust, casual sex, adultery, love, sexual orientation and practice, different types of relationships, and the intersectionality of sexual identity and orientation with other identities such as race, gender, and disability status. As we consider these questions, we will challenge assumptions regarding human sexuality, consider the importance of sexuality and friendship to the good life, and discuss what, if any, is the appropriate role of the state in human sexual behavior Keywords:Ethics, Sex, Sexuality, Sexual Orientation, Relationships

This course critically engages a range of transnational feminist theories, movements, and praxis to analyze structures of power shaping people's lives in global and local contexts. By focusing on African, Asian, South American, Indigenous, and Middle Eastern feminisms, this course seeks to decenter a body of feminist scholarship that often assumes shared visions of gender equality. Such studies conceptualize gender issues and concerns through a Eurocentric/colonial viewpoint by overlooking differences among people with respect to race, class, sexuality/sexual orientation, and nationality. Course readings explore the ethics of cross-cultural knowledge production, activism, warfare, commodification of women and queer peoples' bodies, sexualities, and local resources. The main goals of the course are to expose students to a broad range of feminist thought and action and locate transnational feminist theories in relation to colonial and post-colonial narratives. It urges students to examine their own positions within global systems that connect the (often uneven) exchange of persons, capital, and ways of knowing. Keywords:Feminist Theory, Queer Theory, Postcolonial feminisms, African/a Philosophy

Since Plato, "Beauty" has proven to be a crucial topic in western philosophy. Philosophers across the supposed western/eastern divide have sought to address numerous questions surrounding the topic: what is beauty, what distinguishes and constitutes it, who can create it, who can discern and appreciate it? Is it subjective or objective? We will consider a variety of other critical questions via thinkers across disciplines such as: what is the point in creating art? Who or what is it for? What is its desired or intended impact on the audience? What are the germs of creativity, or what is the critical environment for its emergence? Is creativity and artistic inspiration an individual privilege, or can it be shared broadly in society, or in a community? What is the political role or place of the artist and his/her work? How do politics shape artistic representation? And finally, is the relationship of beauty and art in contemporary aesthetics dead? Keywords:Aesthetics, Philosophy of Art, Ethics, Feminist Theory

Examines through a philosophical approach to representational theory the ways in which gender marginalized and gender diverse individuals and groups represent themselves, their bodies, and their power. In particular, the course explores why women and other gender-marginalized/diverse groups engage in self-representation, and what strategies they have used to reject or revise controlling images and stereotypes. Considerable focus will be placed upon the philosophical, social, and political contexts that shape the representation of gender and its intersections with factors such as race, class, sexuality, nationality, disability, and others. As a philosophical investigation of self-representation activities, this course includes materials from a variety of self-representational mediums in popular culture, including written autobiography, self-portraiture, film/video, performance, art, dance, and self-representations via social media platforms. Keywords:Intersectional/Multi-Dimensional Theory, Feminist Theory, Queer Theory, Critical Philosophies of Race, Critical Theory The content of this course deals with issues of race and power

Black women activists and organizers first coined the term "reproductive justice" in the summer of 1994 while organizing to expand the scope of the Clinton administration's Health Security Act. As a critical theoretical framework, reproductive justice moves beyond the abortion "choice" debates, encompassing a wide range of issues impacting the reproductive lives of marginalized people, including but not limited to the right to have children, not have children, parent the children one has, access safe contraception, comprehensive and culturally informed sex education, prevention and treatment for STIs, access to liberated and liberating birth methods, technologies, and outcomes, what it means to queer access to ARTs, ethical questions around surrogacy, the racialized and colonialist politics of foster care and adoption, adequate prenatal and pregnancy care, adequate wages, and safe(r) homes. In this class we will cover theory and community practices that emerge from a reproductive justice framework as well as what a such a framework suggests for related and intersecting justice issues. Keywords:Feminist Theory, Queer Theory, Philosophy of Race, Social Justice The content of this course deals with issues of race and power. This course could be used to fulfill the Division II Project requirement

Is race biological? Does the gendered brain exist? How are our social and natural sciences structured by social norms? How do our institutions of medicine, agriculture, technology, psychology, etc. function through and as colonial practices? We often take for granted that race and gender are socially constructed in terms of political meaning. In this course, we will learn to think about the social role in the construction of science and scientific claims through exploring the intersections and interplay of gender, race, sexuality, science and medicine. In our readings, lectures and discussions, we will investigate the roles of science, medicine and technology in defining and redefining sex, gender, race, and sexuality; uncover the ways cultural beliefs about social identities shape science, medicine, and technology; and study the efforts by feminist philosophers, philosophers of race, and queer theorists to reveal and challenge the cultural norms that influence scientific knowledge and institutions. Keywords:Philosophy, Race, Ethics, Science, Medicine