Here are some sample syllabi from courses I have taught.

Introductory courses:

A text-based survey of the major positions in the history of philosophy: Platonism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Skepticism, Scholasticism, Empiricism, Rationalism, Pragmatism, Existentialism, Postmodernism, etc.

This course compares two fundamental approaches to one of the basic questions of value: How should one live?  We focus on Aristotelian and Nietzschean perspectives on issues such as the human good, human virtue, the role of pleasure and happiness, the relativity and objectivity of value, the meaning of life, death, autonomy, etc., and we examine these themes in contemporary American cinema.

History courses:

This course examines the history of early modern European philosophy, focusing on the “Quest for Certainty”.  After a brief look at how the Renaissance and the Reformation brought about a crisis of skepticism and religious wars in the late Sixteenth-Century, we trace the various attempts of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century philosophers to find a firm “foundation” for knowledge that could provide certainty and stability in the contentious fields of science, religion, metaphysics, ethics, and politics. 

This course offers a study of Western philosophical movements and thinkers since the 19th century, focusing especially on the breakdown of the philosophical framework known as "modernity". After examining the establishment of modernity by Kant, Hegel, and their followers (including Marxism and Anglo-American analytic philosophy), we examine various responses to the perceived failure of this approach (including existentialism, pragmatism, Wittgensteinian post-analytic philosophy, and continental  postmodernism).

Aesthetics courses:

This course is an introduction to the study of art and aesthetics in the analytic philosophical tradition.  First we explore the major problems, movements, figures, and concepts in the history of philosophical aesthetics, focusing especially on Plato, Augustine, Hume, and Kant. Then we examine the problems and positions in the debates within contemporary philosophical aesthetics, focusing especially on the value of art, the ontology of beauty, the epistemic status of art criticism, and the relationship between aesthetics and ethics. Also, since this is my Biola University (a Christian institution) version of an aesthetics course, we explore the role of art and aesthetics in Christian theology, worship, and discipleship.

This course examines film aesthetics from the perspective of analytic philosophy, focusing especially on the ontological basis of film, the emotional component of film spectatorship (including ethical issues raised by our responses to films), and the debate over whether and how a film itself could be an instance of philosophizing. 

This course is a philosophical exploration of the nature and appeal of horror:  What makes a film horrific? Why do (some) people enjoy horror films?  We examine psychoanalytic, feminist, Marxist, conservative, and analytic philosophical interpretations of horror films. Also, since this is my Biola University (a Christian institution) version of a horror course, we attempt to construct our own Christian interpretation of horror.

Philosophy of Religion courses:

Unlike most Philosophy of Religion courses, this course is not concerned with the question of whether it is rational to believe in God.  Rather, without directly arguing for God’s existence or non-existence, we consider what we mean by the term “God”, and what difference it would make if God existed or didn’t exist with regard to morality and the meaning of life.

This course is a study of the possibility of knowing God.  We examine Kant’s argument for the impossibility of rational knowledge of God and Rudolf Otto’s attempt to find a place within Kantian philosophy for a non-rational or “mystical” knowledge of God. Then we compare and contrast an ontological version of this sort of mysticism in  Heidegger with the more relational view in Buber, and we explore the artistic expression of these themes in “transcendental” cinema of filmmakers such as Dreyer, Bresson, Bergman, Malick, and Kieslowski.

Susan Neiman argues that the history of post-Enlightenment philosophy can be read as an attempt to solve the problem of evil.  Here, “the problem of evil” means not just the problem of how a good God could allow evil to exist, but means something closer to the problem of the meaning of life:  how are we to make sense of the world and our place in it? Julian Young gives a complementary analysis of contemporary philosophy as the attempt “to respond to the question of what can be said about the meaning of life in the light of the death of the God of Christianity”.  But if contemporary philosophy is about the problem of evil and the meaning of life, then contemporary philosophy is done as much through cinema as it is through academia. In this course we analyze classic and current movies in juxtaposition to the thought of philosophers such as Plato, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc.

Here is a course I designed for Fuller Theological Seminary but never got to teach.  Movies (and other narrative artworks) function as modern mythology which constructs both our own religious identities and the way we understand the identities of others. This course introduces Christian theologians to the other major world religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism,Judaism, and Islam via a comparative study of religion in world cinema.  In addition, the course will survey the historical development, belief systems, and contemporary practices of each religion and will provide students with the opportunity to engage at least oneof these religions in a place of worship and/or a local community.

Ethics courses:

This course examines the basic positions in modern moral philosophy (including Contractarianism, Utilitarianism, Kantianism, Feminist Care Ethics, Relativism, Noncognitivism, etc.) and then focuses in depth on MacIntyre's postmodern virtue ethics (including issues such as the narrative basis of the self, the role of imagination and emotion in moral judgment, etc.).

This course focuses on the nature and ethics of love, sex, and marriage, focusing especially on the issues such as the concept of sexual perversion, the feminist critique of objectification, the ethics of gay marriage, the relationships between ethics, politics, and religion, etc.

This course is an introduction to applied ethical reasoning through an examination of contemporary moral issues including abortion, the death penalty, and same sex marriage.  The main objective of this course is for students to begin to acquire the skill of discerning the morally salient issues in complex real life situations.  We read philosopher Martha Nussbaum on how literature such as the novels of Charles Dickens can help develop our ethical skills, but in this course our primary tool is cinema.  After reading philosophical essays about ethical issues we examine realistic complex situations (as portrayed in the ten one-hour episodes of the Polish television series The Decalogue directed by Krysztof Kieslowski) and discuss the moral issues together in class.

Here is a course I designed for Fuller Theological Seminary but never got to teach.  This course is an introduction to U.S. ethnic narratives through their(mis)representation in Hollywood films.  Students will be introduced to the concept ofrace as a social construction and will then explore the way Hollywoodmovies have constructed racial identities. The course will focus especially on African American, Asian American,Native American, and Latino narratives but will also touch on Arabic, Indian,Irish, Italian, Jewish, and other ethnicities. Special attention will be given to the concept of “whiteness”,“otherness”, and to miscegenation with the goal of encouraging thought on the development of multiracial church congregations.

Make a Free Website with Yola.