Fall 2026 Courses

PHI 501 Theories of Race: Black Aesthetics and Art Criticism | Prof. D. Migan | Tuesday 12.30-3.20pm

This course examines philosophical aesthetics, theories of Black aesthetics, critical philosophy of race, and art criticism. Overall, through analyses of theories of aesthetic judgment, we will discuss the priorities of interpretation in different communities of taste. Topics include: analysis of cultural formations, including art and institutions; how the fundamentally racialized and gendered project of modernity has contributed to a narrow understanding of the role of the critic; and the formation of racialized identities as aesthetic theories. Philosophical readings include: Paul C. Taylor, Adrian Piper, Alain Locke, Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Davis, and Pierre Bourdieu alongside contemporary artists and critics.

PHI 505 Beauty from Plato to Heidegger | Prof. M. Craig | Wednesday 3.30-6.20pm

This seminar investigates theories of the beautiful and beauty from Plato through Heidegger, with additional readings by poets, artists, and critics who have written about beauty and its implications beyond aesthetics. Some of the issues we will consider and discuss include: the relationship between beauty and divinity, beauty and truth, beauty and sense perception, and the place of beauty in the realm of ethics and politics.

PHI 508 Urban Visual Culture and Memory | Prof. J. Ward | Tuesday 3.30-6.20pm

Contemporary Issues in the Arts - With an eye on artworks accessible in the public sphere

PHI 600 Aristotles' Metaphysics: A Phenomenological Reading [History] | Prof. A. Kim | Monday 5-7.50pm

Our main goals will be to understand the aim(s) of Aristotle’s Metaphysics; its method(s); and its conclusion(s). Our secondary focus will be to reflect critically on the Metaphysics and our interpretive practice from a phenomenological point of view. This may mean: using phenomenological concepts (many of which have ancient roots) as an interpretive framework; reading the text as proto-phenomenology; treating the text itself as kind of phenomenon to be phenomenologically analyzed. Texts by Heidegger on Aristotle will be assigned in addition to the Metaphysics and standard secondary literature. Time permitting, the course will end with a detailed examination of Book Θ, along with Heidegger’s interpretation of Θ 1-3. A basic grasp of Plato and the pre-Socratics will be assumed, as well as familiarity with phenomenology.

PHI 604 Special Topics in Philosophy: Love [History] | Prof. R. Ansari | Tuesday 2-4.50pm

We will read classical texts on the philosophy of love, beginning with Plato's Symposium.

PHI 631 Analytic Seminar: Frege Russell Wittgenstein Kripke [Contemporary] | Prof. G. Mar | Monday 2-4.50pm

This seminar is an introduction to analytic philosophy emphasizing the interaction between the logical foundations of mathematics and philosophy of language. This interaction will be examined through the writings and work of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Georg Cantor, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap, Kurt Gödel, and Saul Kripke.

PHI 639 Arendt Politics in Dark Times [Interface, Contemporary] | Prof. A. O'Byrne | Wednesday 2-4.50pm

The darkness of our times is deeply connected with the history of imperialism. Arendt is famous for her thoughts on evil, the nature of politics, the phenomenon of totalitarianism, and the life of the mind but she was also a thinker of imperialism. In this course we will study this element of her thought as she works it out in the early sections of Origins of Totalitarianism, On Revolution, “We Refugees,” “Home to Roost,” and elsewhere, and the philosophical and political entanglements she encounters along the way.