Teaching
Below is a reverse-chronological list of courses I have taught (or will teach) at the University of Chicago as instructor of record. If you need my course reviews, please get in touch.
Courses Taught in 2023-2024
I will teach the following courses at the University of Chicago in the 2023-2024 academic year.
What is Nature? - 20th-Century Continental Philosophy
(Winter 2024, listed under SCTH. Prospective crosslist: GRMN)
In this course, we follow the topic of the meaning of nature in philosophy, beginning our exploration right around the point in time when explicit discussion of nature becomes less prominent. Our intention is to develop a coherent narrative about major philosophical developments from Nietzsche through Derrida through the lens offered by this question, examining existentialism, phenomenology, and deconstruction along the way. Students should come away from this course with a grounded sense of what each of these terms means, resulting in foundational knowledge of Continental philosophy after Nietzsche. We will take an interdisciplinary approach, as the question of nature often emerges for our authors in engagement with art, whether drama, poetry, or painting, all of which will be addressed.
Recurrent themes will be: nature and eros, nature and human finitude, the human being as (un)natural, and the very viability of the concept of nature. Main authors are Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida. We will also read Aristotle, Plato, Sappho, Sophocles, Friedrich Hölderlin, Leo Strauss, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Judith Butler, and discuss paintings by Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh. An interesting question to pose along the way will be the relationship (or lack thereof) between the views of nature on offer to our ecological concerns today.
Self, Culture, and Society I, II, III
Fall, Winter, and Spring 2023-2024
I treat this year-long sequence, capped at 19 students, as an opportunity to work intensively on developing a thesis and executing an argument in formal writing. Students meet with me at least twice per quarter to work through paper ideas for their mid-term and finals papers.
From the course catalog:
“Self, Culture, and Society” introduces students to a broad range of social scientific theories and methodologies that deepen their understanding of basic problems of cultural, social, and historical existence. The sequence starts with the conceptual foundations of political economy and theories of capitalism and meaning in modern society. Students then consider the cultural and social constitution of the self, foregrounding the exploration of sexuality, gender, and race. Finally, students critically examine dominant discourses of science, individuality, and alterity, keeping an eye towards the application of social theory to contemporary concerns.
Previous Courses Taught
All courses were taught at the University of Chicago.
Self, Culture, and Society I, II
Fall and Winter 2022-2023
(see description above)
Narratives of the End of Faith
Fall 2021
There seems to be consensus around the notion that the loss of religious faith is one of the defining features of modern society. What does this mean for human life going forward, however? Is what Nietzsche called the “death of God” a catastrophe, or an opportunity? Or is it an event that only seems revolutionary, which in fact masks a deep social continuity? In this interdisciplinary course addressing social theory, philosophy, and theology, we will examine some of the various responses to these questions in the 19th and 20th century, from Karl Marx and Max Weber, through Nietzsche and Heidegger, to “death of God theology.” A guiding thread throughout the course will be the relationship of secularization to freedom. Along the way we will reflect on the meaning of “modernity” and “postmodernity.”
This course is divided into three units, corresponding roughly to social theory, philosophy, and theology. Authors read will be Feuerbach, Marx, Weber, Eliade, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, Marion, and Altizer.
Heidegger's History of Being
(taught in German)
(Zoom course)
Spring 2020
What “is” Being? What is the meaning of Being? What is the difference between “Being” and “a being”? In trying to answer such questions, where would one even begin?
In this course, we will think through such questions with Martin Heidegger. We will examine his startling assertion that the course of Western history is the history of the “forgetting” of Being, investigating what he means by this and assessing this claim. This course will ask what is meant by “metaphysics,” which, according to Heidegger, has dominated Western thought. How does metaphysics “forget” Being? Why does Heidegger want to “overcome” metaphysics?
Since we are examining a certain view of Western philosophical history, many other thinkers will enter our discussion through Heidegger’s work. The texts read for this course will touch on Anaximander, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Hegel, and Nietzsche, for example.
Nietzsche's Death of God
(taught in German )
Spring 2019
“God is dead”: there is, perhaps, no more memorable phrase to express the experience of “modern times” as an epoch of crisis and rupture. In this course, we will think through this assertion of Nietzsche’s. Which God has died? If the death of God is the fundamental experience of our time, then what does it mean to truly be a philosopher of our time, thinking through and beyond God’s death? Through the notion of the death of God, we will talk about “modernity,” “modernism,” “and “postmodernism,” looking occasionally, if time allows, at poetry or the visual arts for comparative purposes. What does it mean, we will ask through Nietzsche, to philosophize “now”?
Along the way, we will contemplate Nietzsche’s generic status as philosopher, poet, philologist, and social theorist. Our reading will center around a complete reading of the short work Twilight of the Idols, along with short excerpts from The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra.