David B. Johnson

In this writing-intensive course, students will work to improve their writing skills through an exploration of environmental ethics, the branch of thought devoted to understanding what makes the nonhuman world valuable, how we human beings should conceive of our relation to and role within that world, and what obligations we owe to the beings that populate it. After a brief introduction to philosophical ethics in general, we will study several texts outlining some of the major approaches to environmental ethics, including anthropocentrism, biocentric egalitarianism, and ecofeminism. These readings will be drawn from a range of disciplines, historical eras, and cultural sources. Students will have the opportunity to explore topics of further interest in the field of environmental ethics through their written work, which will make up the bulk of their coursework and will comprise two major essays, amounting to between 20 to 25 pages of formal, revisable writing. Students will also complete several short homework assignments and in-class writing exercises. The overarching goal of the course is to deepen students’ understanding of and facility with the standards and rigors of evidence-based argumentation and analysis.

What makes someone's belief a conspiracy theory? How do we distinguish conspiracy theory from legitimate suspicion, especially when history teaches us of many real conspiracies? Are conspiracy theories actually pernicious and if so, why? This writing-intensive course aims to deepen and expand the writing skills students gained in FYS I by examining these and related questions through readings in epistemology (the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of knowledge), political philosophy, history, and contemporary journalism. We will examine historical examples of both real conspiracies (e.g., COINTELPRO, the Iran-Contra Affair) and groundless conspiracy theories (e.g., QAnon, Flat Earth theory, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion). Students should expect to produce 20 to 25 pages of formal writing (an essay and a research paper, both of which will go through significant revision), in addition to homework exercises and in-class writing.

Existentialism has left a profound influence on contemporary Western thought, including philosophy, literature, film, theater, and graphic arts. It is a philosophical movement oriented toward two major themes - the analysis of human existence and the centrality of human choice. Existentialist conceptions of freedom and value arise from their view of the individual. According to Existentialist thinkers we are all ultimately alone, isolated islands of subjectivity in an objective world ,who have absolute freedom over our internal nature. Existentialism traces its roots to the writings of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. As a philosophy of human existence, existentialism found its best 20th-century exponent in its foremost representative Albert Camus. Camus believed that the essence of human existence in freedom. He criticized the human tendency toward 'bad faith,' reflected in humanity's perverse attempts to deny its own responsibility and flee from the truth of its inescapable freedom. In this course, we will examine themes of subjectivity, individuality, freedom and meaning that are central to Existentialist philosophy. To arrive at these goals, we will turn to works of philosophy, literature and film. As part of the course we will practice the principles of persuasive writing by learning how to make claims, analyze and make arguments about the works we will be discussing.

A film is a composition of moving images and (usually) sounds that constructs a world, a world typically animated or pervaded by some sort of tension or problem. A film can be said to imagine this problem-filled world, to think through it, and to offer it to us, its spectators, to imagine and to think through as well. Often, the worlds and problems imagined in cinema are philosophically rich: they present metaphysical paradoxes, ethical dilemmas, existential conundrums, socio-political impasses, and aesthetic provocations. In such cases, to imagine and think through a cinematic world entails a kind of cross-pollination of philosophy and film, in which we approach film philosophically and philosophy cinematically. In this course we will pursue this bi-directional approach to cinema and philosophy, exploring the ways in which philosophical concepts and arguments clarify and deepen our understanding of films and the ways in which films think through and give a kind of sensuous flesh to philosophical problems. We will read excerpts from four philosophical texts covering topics in film aesthetics, metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy: Susanne Langer’s “A Note on the Film,” Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy, Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus, and Iris Marion Young’s Justice and the Politics of Difference. We will watch ten films drawn from across film history and around the world, including Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7, Duncan Jones’s Source Code, Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Steve McQueen’s Mangrove, Lucrecia Martel’s Zama, Mathieu Kassovitz’s Hate, Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s House?, and Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. You will be required to watch most of these movies outside of class, but in two or three instances we will have in-class screenings. Coursework will include short Canvas Discussion Board posts, one in-class presentation, and a final paper.