Please find course descriptions, sections, and times for PHIL and RELG courses in the Eagleservice schedule of Classes.

AU CORE Philosophy/Religion Courses

Habits of Mind

Cultural Inquiry

PHIL-211 Introduction to Asian Philosophy

RELG-145 Religion without Borders

RELG-185 The Religious Heritage of Asia

Ethical Reasoning

PHIL-120 Do the Right Thing

PHIL-220 Moral Philosophy

RELG-220 Religious Ethics

Socio-Historical Inquiry

RELG-105 Religious Heritage of the West

RELG-245 Stories of South Asia

Writing and Information Literacy II

PHIL-235 Theories of Democracy

Quantitative Literacy II

PHIL-200 Introduction to Formal Logic

Diversity and Equity

PHIL-211 Introduction to Asian Philosophy

PHIL-236 Ecological Justice: Ethics in a More-than-Human World

2022 Spring and Summer Courses

Please find Spring and Summer 2022 course descriptions, sections, and times for PHIL and RELG courses in the Schedule of Classes.

Highlights

PHIL-380-002 Cognitive Penetration (Spring 2022)

Students in this colloquium consider questions such as does what we believe affect what we see. For instance, consider whether my beliefs about the typical color of bananas cause me to see underripe bananas as more yellow than reality. Ths course addresses whether beliefs one has about different races, genders, and social groups impact one's perceptual experience of people within those groups. Considering answers to various questions raised, students explore whether perceptual experience is cognitively penetrable and the possibility of cognitive penetration through writings in philosophy and cognitive science.

PHIL-4/612-001 Derrida and Buddhism (Spring 2022)

Derridean deconstruction is arguably one of the most influential continental philosophies of the late twentieth century. This course examines major works by Jacques Derrida, compares Derridean deconstruction with Buddhist philosophy, and considers the influence of the deconstructive mode of thinking in our understanding of identity, ethics, and politics.

PHIL-416-001 Feminist Philosophy (Spring 2022)

Posing questions about what we can know, how we perceive, and how we experience our bodies and interactions with the world is arguably a central preoccupation of philosophy. Canonical works such as the Confessions of Augustine and Rousseau, Descartes's vivid first-person account of his quest for certainty, Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological investigation of embodied experience, and Sartre's existentialist study of "the gaze" have historically placed narrative investigation of the nature of human experience at the center of the philosophical project. One way to understand the distinctive contribution of feminist philosophers and theoriests of the late twentieth century is to see that body of work as telling another side of the story, one that radically recasts conceptions of embodiment, identity, ethics, and the body politic. This course focuses on feminist approaches to enduring philosophical questions, to which is added the larger question of difference not limited to that of gender or sex.

PHIL-4/617-001 Race and Philosophy (Spring 2022)

An introduction to the emerging area of critical race theory in philosophy. The course examines the development of "race" as an object of philosophy beginning in the early modern period, explores the way in which analysis of race has brought philosophy into public conversation, and the ways that philosophers have treated race and racism.

PHIL-6/696-001 Phenomenology and the Social World (Spring 2022)

This course is a rigorous inquiry into phenomenology and the social world. Through a close reading of the works of Husserl, Heidegger, Stein, Scheler, Sartre, Beauvoir, and Ahmed, the course engages the core thems of lived-experience, the Other, sociality, historical understanding, feminism, and embodiment.

PHIL-4/696-002 Idealism and Its Discontents: Romantic Thought and Poetry from Hume to Shelley (Spring 2022)

Idealization is central to human thought, but at this historical moment seems untenable. Romanticism embraces the ideal, and yet often turn to literature to instantiate it. Writers such as Blake, Hume, Shelley, and Kant are aware of idealism's costs, but nonetheless embrace it as an enabling fiction. This course considers what ideal fictions enable and explore the poverty of a life without them.

PHIL-616-001 Feminist Philosophy (Spring 2022)

Posing questions about what we can know, how we perceive, and how we experience our bodies and interactions with the world is arguably a central preoccupation of philosophy. Canonical works such as the Confessions of Augustine and Rousseau, Descartes's vivid first-person account of his quest for certainty, Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological investigation of embodied experience, and Sartre's existentialist study of "the gaze" have historically placed narrative investigation of the nature of human experience at the center of the philosophical project. One way to understand the distinctive contribution of feminist philosophers and theoriests of the late twentieth century is to see that body of work as telling another side of the story, one that radically recasts conceptions of embodiment, identity, ethics, and the body politic. This course focuses on feminist approaches to enduring philosophical questions, to which is added the larger question of difference not limited to that of gender or sex.

PHIL-631-001 and PHIL-631-002 Moral Emotions and Social Justice (Spring 2022)

The kind of acute and collective crises experienced in the US in recent years present an opportunity for deep ethical reflection. Students consider how we respond to the social and political inequities, violence, and neglect - exacerbated by COVID-19 - that continue to disproportionately affect people of color, trans and queer communities, people with disabilities, and the working class and poor. In this course on moral emotions and social justice, students explore questions about what is desirable to cultivate in these times of crisis including the kinds of attitudes, emotions, relationships, and traits. The course covers a range of emotional responses to injustice and suffering -such as anger, indignation, open-mindedness, hope, love, and forgiveness - and explores both the merits and limitations of various responses to gain a better sense of how to show up for ourselves and others in a post-pandemic world.

RELG-396-001 Modern Mythology: The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (Spring 2022)

While Greco-Roman myths have captivated their audiences for centuries, these stories usually receive their most sustained attention in their ancient epic-poetic forms. This colloquim centers on a critically acclaimed collection of modern retellings of those myths by Roberto Calasso. Considering Calasso's prose versions of tales - told originally in Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica, and Ovid's Metamorphoses - affords new views of gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, different peoples and creatures, and romantic relationships. Students read The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony before the colloquium begins and together dicuss details of Calasso's enticing compendium herein to glean its prescient wisdom about life as human beings from particular and perhaps problematic lands within an even larger and more unpredictable universe.

RELG-4/675-001 Religion and Violence (Spring 2022)

This course explores the religious dimensions, both ideological and cultural, of political and military conflict. Themes include sacred geography and literature as grounds for bloodshed, the sanctity of race, martyrdom/terrorism, and pacifism. Empirical data is drawn from Germany, Lithuania, the Middle East, and the Balkans.

RELG-4/686-001 Religions of China (Spring 2022)

China has produced and cultivated religious traditions that continue to influence people around the world today. Beginning with ancient practices such as oracle bone divination and then moving into historical and contemporary expressions of Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, this course provides insight into Chinese religious beliefs and ethics.

RELG-4/686-002 Derrida and Buddhism (Spring 2022)

Derridean deconstruction is arguably one of the most influential continental philosophies of the late twentieth century. This course examines major works by Jacques Derrida, compares Derridean deconstruction with Buddhist philosophy, and considers the influence of the deconstructive mode of thinking in our understanding of identity, ethics, and politics.

RELG-4/686-003 Islamic Resistance to Colonialism and Imperialism (Spring 2022)

This course explores the role of Islam in resistance movements in lands colonized by the British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese. We will read the works of Muslim scholars as they reflected on the impact of colonialism on Muslim populations in Egypt, India, Tunisia, Algeria, and beyond. Muslims resisted the violence, humiliation, and erasure that colonizers inflited on them using both violent and nonviolent methods. The widespread colonization of Muslim populations led Muslims to unite despite cultural, linguistic, and geographical differences. As a result, the idea of a "Muslim world" emerged in the works of historians, activists, politicians, and theologians.

RELG-4/686-004 American Christianities (Spring 2022)

This course explores the vast and changing tapestry of Christian belief and practice in the United States from the Revolutionary Era to the present day. Students consider old and new Protestant Christianities, Catholicism, and the emergence of new forms of Christianity such as Mormonism. It pays close attention to the interplay between religion and politics and how religious thinkers and agents grappled with the growth of American democracy, civil religion, and the purpose of the nation in history. Students encounter the blurriness of the doctrine of separation of church and state, the limits of religious freedom and tolerance, and the ever-present dangers of religious nationalism. This course includes assigned field trips to sites in an around Washington, DC.