Thinking Beyond the Human: Philosophy & the Environment

We are currently living a critical time in the world, one characterized by the impending impossibility of the regeneration of life on Earth. This course invites us to think from a variety of disciplines with and through the non-human world and the effects our modern order has on our everyday life. The goal is for students to understand themselves as entrenched in ecological systems without which life cannot subsist, including their own. The question of justice is framed as one that extends to all sentient life and questions students’ paradigms on the moral standing of human and non-human life.

Key Texts: 

  • Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (2015)
  • Dina Gilio-Whitaker, As Long as the Grass Grows (2019)
  • Eduardo Kohn, How Forest Think (2013) 
  • Macarena Gomez-Barriz, The Extractive Zone (2013)
  • Marisol de la Cadena, Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice Across Andean Worlds (2015)
  • Malcolm Ferdinand, Decolonial Ecology (2023)

Latina/x Feminisms

This course explores the theoretical contributions of Latina/xs as they have emerged through local and transnational migratory movements to the United States. The contributions from Latina/x and Chicana/x feminist perspectives bring to the fore complexities of identity that emerge at the intersection between place/space, race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and spirituality. As a result, they critically shed light on the ways in which hemispheric borders are constructed and continue to be negotiated through the movement of people. By exploring the insights of Latina/x and Chicana/x feminist writing this course will interrogate the presumed naturalness of identity and critically consider the organizing axes of the North/South that frame the movement of people and ideas within the Americas with a critical focus on the notion of lived experience.

Key Texts: 

  • Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera (1987)
  • Gloria Anzaldúa, Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro (2013)
  • Maria Lugones, Peregrinajes/Pilgrimages (2003)
  • Mariana Ortega, In-Between: Latina Feminist Phenomenology, Multiplicity, and the Self (2016)
  • Theories of the Flesh: Latinx and Latin American Feminisms (2020) ed. Pitts, Ortega, and Medina.
  • Alma García, Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings (1997)
  • Karma Chavez, Queer Migrations (2003)
  • This Bridge Called My Back (1981) ed. Cherrie Morraga and Gloria Anzaldúa

Ethics of Intimacy

The study of ethics explores the relationship between self and others. In this course, we critically explore the relationship between individuals and communities as they construct notions of intimacy on both the local and global level. The recognition of relationships remains a perennial question at the heart of technological, social, political, and religious thought because it structures how individuals construct and relate to their communities. Which relationships are legitimized and how (state-based, culturally, religiously, socially sanctioned) showcases societal norms,
values, and beliefs about romance, family, and friendship. In this course, we philosophically examine how intimate relationships are forged through the interplay between institutions/structures (e.g. marriage, immigration, consent, adoption) and individuals.

Key Texts: 

  • Sarah Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology (2006)
  • Siobhan Summerville, Queering the Color Line (2000)
  • Riley Snorton, Black on Both Sides (2017)
  • Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for the Feminist Revolution (2003)
  • Audre Lorde, “The Erotic as Power” (1978)
  • Elizabeth Brake, Minimizing Marriage (2013)

Caribbean Philosophy

The course examines the rich intellectual tradition of the Caribbean oriented around issues of colonization, decolonization, resistance, emancipation, and identity. As such, it takes its point of departure to be an interdisciplinary transnational study of ideas forged in and through the
Caribbean, which in this context includes its diaspora. Students consider the meaning of the
Caribbean as a geopolitical space, identities forged in the Caribbean, social and political problems that emerge as a result of colonialism and globalization. In doing so, they will be
introduced to major figures as well as philosophical problems around ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology.

Key Texts:

  • Aime Cesaire, Discourses on Colonialism (1950)
  • Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (2005)
  • Malcom Ferdinand, Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World (2023)
  • Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks (1967)
  • Sylvia Wynter, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation – An Argument” (2023)
  • Eduard Glissant, Poetics of Relation (1990)
  • Yomaira Figueroa, Decolonizing Diaspora (2020)
  • Kris Sealey, Creolizing the Nation (2020)

Latin American Philosophy

This course introduces students to the philosophical traditions of Latin America with an eye toward social and political thought. It considers debates about identity (national, racial, ethnic,
gender) and politics, the lasting impacts of colonialism and imperialism on the development of
thought, and the experience of hybrid cultural communities and their diasporas. Readings are interdisciplinary and pull from different regions in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States and invite students to read and closely analyze primary texts in their historical context.

Key Texts: 

  • Latin American Philosophy for the 21 st Century (2001) Ed. Jorge J.E. Gracia and Elizabeth Millan Forging People: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in Hispanic American and Latina/o Thought (2011) Ed. Jorge Gracia
  • Blackwell Companion to Latin American Philosophy (2013). Ed. Susana Nuccetelli, Ofelia Schutte, and Otávio Bueno
  • James Maffie, Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion (2013)
  • Latin American and Latinx Philosophy: A Collaborative Introduction Ed. Robert Sanchez
  • Carlos Alberto Sánchez, Contingency and Commitment: Mexican Existentialism and the Place of Philosophy (2015)
  • Mexican Philosophy in the 20th Century: Essential Readings, (2017) Ed. Carlos Alberto Sanchez and Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr.
  • Rita Segato, Critique of Coloniality: Eight Essays (2022)