Syllabus: Course Description

“Philosophy of Race and Gender: Politics and Metaphysics”
UCSC PHIL 153 Fall 2008
Mo, We, Fr 2:00p-3:10p in Soc Sci Bldg 2 Room 075

Instructor: Colin Koopman (cwkoopman@gmail.com)
Office Hours: Cowell Annex A101, Mon & Fri 12:30p-1:30p
Course Website and Blog: http://ucscphil153.blogspot.com/


Course Objective:
This course will focus on race and gender through two sets of questions. The first set of questions concerns our political and moral attitudes about race, gender, racism, and sexism. Should race and/or gender be an explicit part of our theories of justice and of morality? What would it require to take race and gender seriously in the concepts that inform our views about justice, right, and good? What would it take to practically and institutionally achieve a justice and an ethics concerning themselves with race and gender? Another set of questions that we will focus on concerns many of the thorny ontological and metaphysical questions implicated by these moral and political issues. An adequate reply to the moral and political challenges we face concerning race and gender will inevitably draw conceptual, epistemological, and metaphysical issues into our discussions. Of particular importance will be debates concerning whether race and gender are realities or constructions (or something else). Are race and gender natural? Or are race and gender constructed features of our socio-cultural environment? If constructed, how are race and gender constructed and how might they be reconstructed? Both sets of questions (political and metaphysical) are crucial for our central focus: race and gender and their place in our contemporary cultural landscape.


A Note on the Readings and Methods of the Course:
Like most philosophy courses, the method of this course is centered on texts. We will educate ourselves by reading. Toward this, we will so far as is possible devote ourselves to reading books (as well as a few scholarly journal articles and watching a few online lectures in class). This is a good habit to practice in a world that puts a premium on attention. Philosophy is about thinking (reasoning) and looking (investigating)—it is also about doing these things through reading and writing. Now is your best opportunity to learn the habits, and therefore the rewards, of spending time with books, getting to know an author, and working with their writings for awhile.