PHIL 521

Fall 2024 All Classes

All Classes

Seminar Contemporary Problems

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Credit: 2 OR 4 hours.

Intensive study of selected problems or topics in contemporary philosophy.

Approved for letter and S/U grading. May be repeated. Letter grading applies when offered for 4 hours of credit. For Stage 3 Philosophy PhD students this course is approved for S/U grading when offered for 2 hours of credit. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor for non-philosophy graduate students.

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PHIL 521 class schedule data for fall 2024
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	59629	Lecture-Discussion	G2	11:00AM -1:50PM	M	402 Gregory Hall	Kerr, A	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/26/24-12/11/24 Special Approval: Instructor Approval Required Credit: 2 hours Section Info: In Resisting Reality, Sally Haslanger argues that “philosophical analysis has a potential for unmasking ideology, not simply articulating it.” This seminar interrogates ideologies of race, gender, sex, and love through an engagement in what Haslanger calls conceptual analysis, examining how such concepts are engineered, how their purpose shapes their meaning, and asking what we might want them to mean. Course coordinates with two weeks of intensive workshops with George A. Miller visiting scholar, Jordan Pascoe, on gender, sex, and love – we draw on contemporary and historical philosophical frameworks to tease out the project of ideological concept engineering and re-engineering. We begin with an analysis of the “invention” of the concept of race in the philosophical system of Immanuel Kant, and explore the re-engineering of the race concept in response to scientific, historical, and conceptual revolutions, from the Haitian revolution to postbellum labor practices to the construction of disaster in the American imaginary. In the second half of the seminar, we turn to the contemporary project of conceptual re-engineering, following Haslanger’s insight that “we should begin by asking what, if anything, we want [our concepts] to be.” By engaging contemporary reimaginings of the concepts related to sex, love, and gender, we explore the possibilities and limits of re-engineering concepts in the name of liberation and justice. Instructor permission is required to register for the course by emailing Professor Alison Duncan Kerr at adkerr@illinois.edu. Restriction(s): Restricted to students with Graduate class standing.
	70368	Lecture-Discussion	G4	11:00AM -1:50PM	M	402 Gregory Hall	Kerr, A	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/26/24-12/11/24 Special Approval: Instructor Approval Required Credit: 4 hours Section Info: In Resisting Reality, Sally Haslanger argues that “philosophical analysis has a potential for unmasking ideology, not simply articulating it.” This seminar interrogates ideologies of race, gender, sex, and love through an engagement in what Haslanger calls conceptual analysis, examining how such concepts are engineered, how their purpose shapes their meaning, and asking what we might want them to mean. Course coordinates with two weeks of intensive workshops with George A. Miller visiting scholar, Jordan Pascoe, on gender, sex, and love – we draw on contemporary and historical philosophical frameworks to tease out the project of ideological concept engineering and re-engineering. We begin with an analysis of the “invention” of the concept of race in the philosophical system of Immanuel Kant, and explore the re-engineering of the race concept in response to scientific, historical, and conceptual revolutions, from the Haitian revolution to postbellum labor practices to the construction of disaster in the American imaginary. In the second half of the seminar, we turn to the contemporary project of conceptual re-engineering, following Haslanger’s insight that “we should begin by asking what, if anything, we want [our concepts] to be.” By engaging contemporary reimaginings of the concepts related to sex, love, and gender, we explore the possibilities and limits of re-engineering concepts in the name of liberation and justice. Instructor permission is required to register for the course by emailing Professor Alison Duncan Kerr at adkerr@illinois.edu.