Courses taught


At the University of British Columbia I teach courses both in the Philosophy department and in the Arts One program. In addition, during my first year at UBC I also taught a course in the Women’s Studies program (now the Institute for Race, Gender and Social Justice).

Philosophy

I regularly teach the following courses:

  • PHIL 102, Introduction to Philosophy: this course is focused on value theory.
  • PHIL 230, Introduction to Moral Theory: this course focuses on Kantianism, utilitarianism and virtue ethics, but I often also include sections on moral relativism and moral objectivity as well as the ethics of care.
  • PHIL 449, Continental Philosophy: I teach this course in a seminar format, and it usually focuses on the work of Michel Foucault and sometimes also another philosopher such as Friedrich Nietzsche.

Please see the course materials page for syllabi and assignments from these courses.

I have also taught the following courses in Philosophy at UBC:

  • PHIL 330: Social and Political Philosophy
  • PHIL 334: Sex, Gender and Philosophy
  • PHIL 335: Power and Oppression

 

Arts One

Arts One is a team-taught, interdisciplinary, full-year course restricted to first year students at UBC. See the Arts One website, here: http://artsone.arts.ubc.ca  It has two groups of about 100 students and five professors, each with a theme that guides the readings for the year. For example, in 2015-2016, one group has the theme “Hero, Anti-Hero,” and the other has a theme called “Seeing and Knowing“.

Each group of ~100 students and five faculty meets weekly for a two-hour lecture on a text, film or other work. Each faculty member on the teaching team has twenty students that they meet with twice weekly for seminar-style discussions. Each student writes an essay of about 1500 words every two weeks, and every week four students plus their professor meet in tutorials to do peer review of these essays (so each professor has five tutorial meetings a week: each one with four of their twenty students).

Arts One counts as 18 credits for students, which is the equivalent of six one-term courses. For me, it counts as four one-term courses out of my six one-term course load. Thus, when I teach in Arts One, I teach two other courses per year in  Philosophy.

I have taught in Arts One since 2005, in the following themes (I was on leave 2007-2008 and 2012-2013).  There is only online information about the last three themes I’ve taught in:

  • Narrative and Identity (2005-2007)
  • Hopes and Fears: The History, Philosophy and Literature of Science in Western Culture (2008-2010)
  • Dangerous Questions, Forbidden Knowledge (2010-2012)
  • Remake/Remodel (2013-2014)
  • Repetition Compulsion (2014-2015)
  • Seeing and Knowing (starting Fall 2015, going through Spring 2017)

Please see the course materials page for syllabi and assignments from some of these Arts One themes.

 

Institute for Gender, Race, and Social Justice

I taught a year-long course called Introduction to Women’s Studies in 2004-2005.

 

Previous to UBC

I taught the following courses as an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Rock County:

  • Introduction to Philosophy
  • Ethics (Theoretical and Applied)
  • Logic (introductory-level informal and symbolic)
  • Social and Political Philosophy
  • Philosophy of the Arts (interdisciplinary course)
  • Human Nature, Religion and Society
  • First-Year Seminar

I taught the following courses while an adjunct instructor at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas (while a graduate student):

  • Ethical Analysis (Ethical Theory)
  • Business Ethics

While a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, I taught the following courses at UT-Austin as an independent instructor:

  • Introduction to Philosophy
  • Contemporary Moral Problems
  • Business Ethics
  • Introduction to the Philosophy of the Arts