Course Catalog

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KANT, HEGEL, AND BEYOND (PL3076)

Philosophical and political modernity concerns the development of rationality, freedom, and social responsibility from out of the tensions between ethics, religion, politics and the economy. With postmodernist epistemology, the so-called 'return' of religion, and economic globalization, this 'modernity' has been questioned. In this historical context the course re-elaborates the problematic of modernity through selective reading of Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche.

MODERN CRITICAL THEORY (PL3079)

Modern Critical Theory examines the notions of experience, representation and value from a plurality of standpoints: linguistic, semiotic, anthropological, psychoanalytic, literary, philosophical, aesthetic. This course studies the main schools and authors of this tradition and focuses on the notion of cultural meaning in the works of key theorists (from Levi-Strauss to Said, from Adorno to Butler).

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP (PL3087)

Digital citizenship is a key concept of our digital age, expressing the hope that a humane use of digital technologies is possible. The course contrasts digital citizenship with political, environmental, and global conceptions citizenship, before studying the political, legal, and educational dimensions of digital citizenship. It also explores selected practices of digital citizenship, including clicktivism, digital commoning, and digital counter surveillance.

TOPICS IN PHILOSOPHY (PL3091)

Topics vary by semester

IMPERIAL ROME: PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, SOCIETY (PL3114)

Studies the Greek and Latin literature of the Roman Empire. Readings will include: Seneca, star prose writer and poet of tragedies that impressed Shakespeare; Lucanus’ anti-Aeneid; Petronius’ Satyrica, the first Latin novel; Tacitus, the dark historian; witty epigrams and biting satire; a speech On Magic; the Stoics Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, one an ex-slave, the other an emperor; and Plutarch’s account of Antony's love for Cleopatra

KEY TEXTS: SOCRATES, SOPHISTS, AND THE STAGE (PL3116)

A grand tour of 5th cent. BCE Athens, a fascinating time of intellectual unrest and innovation. Readings include the founding fathers of drama (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides), Old Comedy (Aristophanes), fragments of the Greek sophists, the historiographers Herodotus and Thucydides, Xenophon’s Recollections of Socrates and early Platonic dialogues, such as the Apology and the Phaedo.

EMPIRE AND INDIVIDUAL: FROM ALEXANDER TO CAESAR (PL3117)

A tour through 300 years of Greek and Roman history and shifting multiethnic empires, from the death of Alexander to the death of Cleopatra (30 BCE). We read a lot: overviews of the Hellenistic Age and the Roman Republic as well as original works by Menander, Epicurus, Cleanthes, Callimachus, Theocritus, Aratus, Apollonius Rhodius, Polybius, Plautus, Terence, Ennius, Sallustius, Cicero, Caesar, Lucretius, Catullus, and others.

TOPICS IN PHILOSOPHY (PL3910)

TOPICS VARY BY SEMESTER