journal_instructions.pdf |
Pick a notebook and label it "Journal - Philosophy & Feminism". This will be your course journal. Starting on January 30, the journal must have an entry corresponding to each session, and each entry must contain at least one relevant term defined, at least one question on the material, and at least one comment. Additionally, your journal must contain a case study.
Elements of the journal:
a) Entries: Journal entries must contain at least one term defined, at least one question and at least one comment.
Definitions: The assigned readings will contain terms you have not encountered before. Your journal must contain definitions for such terms. If you copy the definition from a source, write down the reference (e.g. Oxford Dictionary, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Questions: Your journal must contain questions on assigned readings. When going over an assigned reading, instead of thinking whether or not you agree with the author, reflect on the question the author is addressing, identify the argument the author is offering, the assumptions behind the argument, the practical consequences if any. Then inquire into the text.
The emphasis on questions, as opposed to answers, has two main benefits. First, you have more to say. The space of possible questions when discussing a text is more open and flexible than the space of (correct) answers to posed questions. Second, and more importantly, this vastness of the space of questions clearly shows the need for training and sharpening one’s questioning skills to be able to build a coherent inquiry; otherwise each question remains an isolated stroke in space that takes you nowhere. Frantic questioning of everything, posing questions that are disconnected from each other, is not, in spite of a common misconception, what philosophy is about. That type of questioning does not facilitate understanding and creates a false sense of justified skepticism. An additional benefit of the emphasis on questions is that through your questions, you can track your learning trajectory more accurately, for asking relevant questions requires understanding, while correct answers can always be given without understanding.
Questions need to be relevant and of quality. Good questions engage with the text’s argument and show understanding of the material. For example, a good question inquires about a problem with the argument, or proposes a counterexample, or suggest a future line of inquiry, or proposes an application of the argument(s) or main idea(s) to other domains or cases.
Comments: Your comments can be reflections on the reading, they can connect different readings, or apply a concept or discussion to something outside the course (e.g. a personal experience, something learned in a different course, a movie, the news).
b) Case study: Once you identify a topic you are interested in, start your own line of inquiry. You can start with one or two of the questions from your “Questions” section. Your case study must contain: a general description of the subject matter of inquiry, a set of questions delimiting the subject matter in more specific ways, a selection of readings and other materials you have consulted, and an example of a real or fictional situation that your inquiry is concerned with.
This is an example of case study:
General description: Reactions of cats to cucumbers.
Questions delimiting the subject matter in more specific ways: Are cats afraid of cucumbers? Is it possible to describe their reaction as something other than fear? Are they reacting to the shape of cucumbers? Their color? Is it the smell? If our goal were to find a way to tame cats, how could cucumbers help?
Readings and other materials:
Tabor, Roger (2003) Understanding cat behavior. David & Charles
Cats & Squirrels blog, by Mikel Maria Delgado http://catsandsquirrels.com
Youtube
Real or fictional situation the inquiry is concerned with: Many youtube videos show cats jumping at the sight of a cucumber. My own cat, however, doesn’t care.
How to organize the journal:
Your journal must be divided into two sections, “ENTRIES” and “CASE STUDY”.
a) Entries: Entries are organized according to date. Each entry needs a heading indicating the date, the reference of the assigned reading(s), or the date and the word “review” if it is an entry about a Friday session. Please use “Def” to indicate definitions, “Q” for questions, and “C” for comments.
This is how the beginning of your journal must look like:
6-Sep Esa Díaz-León, “Feminist Metaphysics and Philosophy of Language” sections 1, 2, 3 & 4 + Kristie Miller, “What is metaphysics” pp. 195-215
[Def, Q, C]
8-Sep Review
[Def, Q, C]
11-Sep Esa Díaz-León “Feminist Metaphysics and Philosophy of Language” sections 5-6 + Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Ch. 7
[Def, Q, C]
13-Sep Esa Díaz-León, “Amatonormativity and hermeneutical injustice”
[Def, Q, C]
15-Sep Review
[Def, Q, C]
b) Case study: Allocate the last 15 pages of your journal to the case study. Mark the page so it is easily accessible. Write down headings for each component of the case study (“General description”, “Questions”, “Readings and other materials”, “Real of fictional situation”).
There are two journal assessments. You start with 15 points at every assessment, distributed as follows:
1st Journal assessment: any time between February 1st and April 12th. You lose 2 points for every missing entry. Questions, comments and definitions are evaluated according to relevance and quality. You also lose points for bad quality work: Uninformative definitions, questions which are irrelevant or which could be asked by anyone who has not made the reading/attended class discussions, and/or comments that deviate from the subject matter (penalty: up to 2 points each).
2nd Journal assessment (May 1st):
You lose 10 points if your journal lacks a case study or if it is incomplete (an incomplete case study receives 0 points). You lose 1 point for every missing entry.
If your journal does not follow these instructions (e.g. it lacks headings, entries are not organized by date), you lose up to 10 points.
Elements of the journal:
a) Entries: Journal entries must contain at least one term defined, at least one question and at least one comment.
Definitions: The assigned readings will contain terms you have not encountered before. Your journal must contain definitions for such terms. If you copy the definition from a source, write down the reference (e.g. Oxford Dictionary, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Questions: Your journal must contain questions on assigned readings. When going over an assigned reading, instead of thinking whether or not you agree with the author, reflect on the question the author is addressing, identify the argument the author is offering, the assumptions behind the argument, the practical consequences if any. Then inquire into the text.
The emphasis on questions, as opposed to answers, has two main benefits. First, you have more to say. The space of possible questions when discussing a text is more open and flexible than the space of (correct) answers to posed questions. Second, and more importantly, this vastness of the space of questions clearly shows the need for training and sharpening one’s questioning skills to be able to build a coherent inquiry; otherwise each question remains an isolated stroke in space that takes you nowhere. Frantic questioning of everything, posing questions that are disconnected from each other, is not, in spite of a common misconception, what philosophy is about. That type of questioning does not facilitate understanding and creates a false sense of justified skepticism. An additional benefit of the emphasis on questions is that through your questions, you can track your learning trajectory more accurately, for asking relevant questions requires understanding, while correct answers can always be given without understanding.
Questions need to be relevant and of quality. Good questions engage with the text’s argument and show understanding of the material. For example, a good question inquires about a problem with the argument, or proposes a counterexample, or suggest a future line of inquiry, or proposes an application of the argument(s) or main idea(s) to other domains or cases.
Comments: Your comments can be reflections on the reading, they can connect different readings, or apply a concept or discussion to something outside the course (e.g. a personal experience, something learned in a different course, a movie, the news).
b) Case study: Once you identify a topic you are interested in, start your own line of inquiry. You can start with one or two of the questions from your “Questions” section. Your case study must contain: a general description of the subject matter of inquiry, a set of questions delimiting the subject matter in more specific ways, a selection of readings and other materials you have consulted, and an example of a real or fictional situation that your inquiry is concerned with.
This is an example of case study:
General description: Reactions of cats to cucumbers.
Questions delimiting the subject matter in more specific ways: Are cats afraid of cucumbers? Is it possible to describe their reaction as something other than fear? Are they reacting to the shape of cucumbers? Their color? Is it the smell? If our goal were to find a way to tame cats, how could cucumbers help?
Readings and other materials:
Tabor, Roger (2003) Understanding cat behavior. David & Charles
Cats & Squirrels blog, by Mikel Maria Delgado http://catsandsquirrels.com
Youtube
Real or fictional situation the inquiry is concerned with: Many youtube videos show cats jumping at the sight of a cucumber. My own cat, however, doesn’t care.
How to organize the journal:
Your journal must be divided into two sections, “ENTRIES” and “CASE STUDY”.
a) Entries: Entries are organized according to date. Each entry needs a heading indicating the date, the reference of the assigned reading(s), or the date and the word “review” if it is an entry about a Friday session. Please use “Def” to indicate definitions, “Q” for questions, and “C” for comments.
This is how the beginning of your journal must look like:
6-Sep Esa Díaz-León, “Feminist Metaphysics and Philosophy of Language” sections 1, 2, 3 & 4 + Kristie Miller, “What is metaphysics” pp. 195-215
[Def, Q, C]
8-Sep Review
[Def, Q, C]
11-Sep Esa Díaz-León “Feminist Metaphysics and Philosophy of Language” sections 5-6 + Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Ch. 7
[Def, Q, C]
13-Sep Esa Díaz-León, “Amatonormativity and hermeneutical injustice”
[Def, Q, C]
15-Sep Review
[Def, Q, C]
b) Case study: Allocate the last 15 pages of your journal to the case study. Mark the page so it is easily accessible. Write down headings for each component of the case study (“General description”, “Questions”, “Readings and other materials”, “Real of fictional situation”).
There are two journal assessments. You start with 15 points at every assessment, distributed as follows:
1st Journal assessment: any time between February 1st and April 12th. You lose 2 points for every missing entry. Questions, comments and definitions are evaluated according to relevance and quality. You also lose points for bad quality work: Uninformative definitions, questions which are irrelevant or which could be asked by anyone who has not made the reading/attended class discussions, and/or comments that deviate from the subject matter (penalty: up to 2 points each).
2nd Journal assessment (May 1st):
You lose 10 points if your journal lacks a case study or if it is incomplete (an incomplete case study receives 0 points). You lose 1 point for every missing entry.
If your journal does not follow these instructions (e.g. it lacks headings, entries are not organized by date), you lose up to 10 points.
Group presentations. Instructions and rubric.
group_presentations instructions.pdf |
Groups of 2-3 people.
What is this assignment about?
We have discussed many different questions along the course. Pick one topic that was especially interesting for you, do some research on it, and present it in class. Your presentation needs to put forward an argument for or against some position. In order to do so, you can make use of examples (e.g. real cases), thought experiments, and other readings outside of the reading list. The connection with materials covered in class needs to be made explicit.
This assignment has three goals
a) making you work in collaboration
b) giving you the opportunity to explore in more detail some question you find interesting
c) giving you the opportunity to communicate your ideas to an audience.
Theme
You can choose any question that have been discussed in class, or is addressed by a reading that is in the course list (even if we haven’t discussed it yet). On many occasions, our class discussions have mentioned questions that we didn’t have time to discuss in depth. This is an opportunity for you to explore one of those questions.
Format
- The presentation should last a maximum of 15 minutes, and a minimum of 10 minutes.
- You can use the projector and play slides, video, and/or audio.
- All members of the group should take part in the presentation.
- Your presentation can include interactive activities with the audience.
- Obvious, but just in case: Your presentation must be appropriate in both content and format to an academic setting. Avoid coarse language, and disturbing or inappropriate images and gestures.
Important note: You don’t need to submit any written version of the presentation.
Rubric for group presentations
Maximum points: 10
Relevance: 1 point. This is a necessary point: If you don’t get this point, it means your presentation is irrelevant for the class, and I will not be able to grade it.
The topic of the presentation must be related to the course content. It must be directly related to class discussions and assigned readings.
Content quality: 3 points
You get the maximum 3 points if: The topic has been researched and the presentation shows that the presenters understand the topic (evidence for this is e.g. they correctly identify and distinguish different theoretical positions, they correctly use the relevant concepts, they correctly draw conclusions from appropriate premises); The presentation is informative and it draws on course material and class discussions.
Presentation quality: 3 points
You get the maximum 3 points if: the presentation is well structured; it is easy to follow; there is an appropriate use of aids (e.g. slides, whiteboard, handouts, video).
Originality in general: 3 point
You get the maximum 3 points if: your presentation expands on some course material in an innovative way; it does not merely summarize something we have said in class, but goes further.
What is this assignment about?
We have discussed many different questions along the course. Pick one topic that was especially interesting for you, do some research on it, and present it in class. Your presentation needs to put forward an argument for or against some position. In order to do so, you can make use of examples (e.g. real cases), thought experiments, and other readings outside of the reading list. The connection with materials covered in class needs to be made explicit.
This assignment has three goals
a) making you work in collaboration
b) giving you the opportunity to explore in more detail some question you find interesting
c) giving you the opportunity to communicate your ideas to an audience.
Theme
You can choose any question that have been discussed in class, or is addressed by a reading that is in the course list (even if we haven’t discussed it yet). On many occasions, our class discussions have mentioned questions that we didn’t have time to discuss in depth. This is an opportunity for you to explore one of those questions.
Format
- The presentation should last a maximum of 15 minutes, and a minimum of 10 minutes.
- You can use the projector and play slides, video, and/or audio.
- All members of the group should take part in the presentation.
- Your presentation can include interactive activities with the audience.
- Obvious, but just in case: Your presentation must be appropriate in both content and format to an academic setting. Avoid coarse language, and disturbing or inappropriate images and gestures.
Important note: You don’t need to submit any written version of the presentation.
Rubric for group presentations
Maximum points: 10
Relevance: 1 point. This is a necessary point: If you don’t get this point, it means your presentation is irrelevant for the class, and I will not be able to grade it.
The topic of the presentation must be related to the course content. It must be directly related to class discussions and assigned readings.
Content quality: 3 points
You get the maximum 3 points if: The topic has been researched and the presentation shows that the presenters understand the topic (evidence for this is e.g. they correctly identify and distinguish different theoretical positions, they correctly use the relevant concepts, they correctly draw conclusions from appropriate premises); The presentation is informative and it draws on course material and class discussions.
Presentation quality: 3 points
You get the maximum 3 points if: the presentation is well structured; it is easy to follow; there is an appropriate use of aids (e.g. slides, whiteboard, handouts, video).
Originality in general: 3 point
You get the maximum 3 points if: your presentation expands on some course material in an innovative way; it does not merely summarize something we have said in class, but goes further.
Other resources
Feminist Philosophers: https://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com
This is a blog run by philosophers in the US and UK where you can find links to articles and news of interest to feminist philosophy. Often you'll find very interesting discussions in the comments.
Political Philosopher: https://politicalphilosopher.net
This is a blog run by philosopher Meena Krishnamurthy. It contains a collection of short entries by philosophers underrepresented in the profession. It's a great way to get to know philosophers and to learn about the cool projects they are working on. Dr. Krishnamurthy recently closed the blog, but the entries remained accessible.
What is it like to be a woman in philosophy? https://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com
This is a collection of anonymous testimonies. A great source to learn about experiences from people who identify as women as they deal with undergraduate and graduate studies in philosophy, and also from the perspective of faculty.
What is it like to be a foreigner in academia? https://beingaforeignerinacademia.wordpress.com
Also a collection of anonymous testimonies, this time about immigrants and international scholars and the experiences they go through in academia.
What is it like to be a person of color in philosophy? https://beingaphilosopherofcolor.wordpress.com
A collection of anonymous testimonies on being a person of color in philosophy.
Society for Women in Philosophy https://ssl.uh.edu/~cfreelan/SWIP/
Society for Analytical Feminism https://sites.google.com/site/analyticalfeminism/
Bay Area Workshop on Feminism and Philosophy http://bayfap.weebly.com
Hypatia: A journal of feminist philosophy http://hypatiaphilosophy.org
Feminist Philosophy Quarterly http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/fpq/
This is a blog run by philosophers in the US and UK where you can find links to articles and news of interest to feminist philosophy. Often you'll find very interesting discussions in the comments.
Political Philosopher: https://politicalphilosopher.net
This is a blog run by philosopher Meena Krishnamurthy. It contains a collection of short entries by philosophers underrepresented in the profession. It's a great way to get to know philosophers and to learn about the cool projects they are working on. Dr. Krishnamurthy recently closed the blog, but the entries remained accessible.
What is it like to be a woman in philosophy? https://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com
This is a collection of anonymous testimonies. A great source to learn about experiences from people who identify as women as they deal with undergraduate and graduate studies in philosophy, and also from the perspective of faculty.
What is it like to be a foreigner in academia? https://beingaforeignerinacademia.wordpress.com
Also a collection of anonymous testimonies, this time about immigrants and international scholars and the experiences they go through in academia.
What is it like to be a person of color in philosophy? https://beingaphilosopherofcolor.wordpress.com
A collection of anonymous testimonies on being a person of color in philosophy.
Society for Women in Philosophy https://ssl.uh.edu/~cfreelan/SWIP/
Society for Analytical Feminism https://sites.google.com/site/analyticalfeminism/
Bay Area Workshop on Feminism and Philosophy http://bayfap.weebly.com
Hypatia: A journal of feminist philosophy http://hypatiaphilosophy.org
Feminist Philosophy Quarterly http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/fpq/