Thinking lived themes

Inleiding

In this course we will relay these questions by exploring how more inclusive themes are put on the philosophical agenda and in what way.

The canon of academic philosophy has increasingly come under scrutiny due to the ‘inclusivity question’. Taking the urgency of inclusivity as premised, what does it mean to make philosophical curricula more inclusive? Do we need to read primary texts by women, people of color, non-western thinkers? Do our teachers need to have diverse backgrounds? Do we need to change the norm of what good academic philosophy is so we can include non-canonical works?
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In this course we will relay these questions by exploring how more inclusive themes are put on the philosophical agenda and in what way. In 20th century philosophy we have already seen Arendt juxtapose Heidegger’s notion of ‘thrownness’ in the world with a notion of ‘natality’. Foucault scrutinized the many institutional and discursive mechanisms that produce and sustain a heterosexual norm. Crenshaw taught us that ‘oppression’ means something very different to poor black women than it does to the middleclass white women that advocate ‘women’s liberation’. Likewise, in this course we focus on the lived themes of situatedness and response-ability, of bodily thought, of colonizing norms and of visionary futures.

Rather than linking these newly introduced philosophical themes to identities as e.g. woman, queer and/or black, in this course we tie these themes to lived experiences. In some lives, specific themes like natality are much more central and urgent than in other lives – than in the lives of many canonical philosophers. We will discuss examples of how some of the neglected themes that are embedded in lived experiences have been or are being included in philosophical practice, thus expanding the philosophical agenda.

This introduction of lived themes also results in problematizing a mainstream ‘style’ or ‘method’ of philosophizing – presumed that philosophical content and form entangle. Everyday concrete experiences, transdisciplinarity, fiction and bodily experiments for instance permeate this kind of philosophical work more often. In each lecture there will be explicit attention to the implications that thinking about a new theme has for how we think. In workshops we will experiment with these alternative styles of philosophizing.

Prior knowledge

You need to have obtained a minimum of 90 EC in Bachelor 1 and 2 to register.

Language

Engels

Period

Bachelor 3, blok 3A, 7 February until 11 March 2022

Course guide & Literature

 Please consult the course guide for timetable and literature. Here available soon.