Upcoming Offerings

Spring 2026

Black Aesthetics

PHIL 5050 | Michael Kelly| Online Course

‘Aesthetics’ for our purposes means critical imagining, making, and thinking in and about art, culture, design, everyday life, and nature.  Why Black aesthetics? Because some of the most creative and conceptual developments in modern and contemporary aesthetics are within the history of Black aesthetics, despite the fact that Black aesthetics typically has not been recognized as part of the history of modern aesthetics (for reasons we will discuss). Some of the key questions in this course are: What is BLACK about black aesthetics and what is different, if anything, about AESTHETICS in black aesthetics? How was modern Western aesthetics racist when it started in the 18th century? How can the racism be eliminated? Is aesthetics still racist? How has Black aesthetics developed despite the genealogy of Western aesthetics? What are the contemporary forms of Black aesthetics?

Queer Theory

PHIL 5170 | Kent Brintnall | Tuesday 5:30 pm – 8:15 pm

Introduction to key issues in queer theory, a field of studies that questions and redefines the identity politics of early lesbian and gay studies. Queer theory investigates the socially constructed nature of identity and sexuality and critiques normalizing ways of knowing and being.

Ethical Theory

PHIL 6110 | Gordon Hull | Wednesday 12:20 pm – 3:05 pm

Examination of major normative and meta theories that undergird our practical judgments about morally right actions and morally good persons, organizations, or policies. This examination may include central problems and issues concerning morality’s: requirements (e.g., utility, duty, virtue, care), authority (e.g., absolutism, relativism, pluralism, multiculturalism), scope (e.g., deceased or future human beings, animals, environment), justification (e.g., rationality, intuition), source (e.g., reason, sentiment, disagreement), and nature (e.g., realism/antirealism, objectivity/subjectivity).

Ethics, Security, Privacy, and Governance of Data for Social Good

PHIL 6130 | Damien Williams | Tuesday 5:30 pm – 8:15 pm

Ethical, privacy, and security concerns that arise in data science, with attention to the ways that governance policies and technological developments can either ameliorate or increase them. The course offers insights on the social impacts and potential benefits that data science and data scientists can provide to society.

Health Law and Ethics

PHIL 6220 | | Wednesday 5:30 pm – 8:15 pm

This course interprets and uses the main normative principles of bioethics (autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice) to guide the practice of healthcare professionals and policymakers. It also increases understanding, interpretation, and monitoring of the impact of legal, regulatory, and political environments on healthcare organizations. Topics include: medical malpractice, Medicare and Medicaid law, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, reproductive freedom, death and dying, pain and suffering, allocation of scarce medical resources, developments in genetics, and regenerative medicine.

Research Ethics in the Biological and Behavioral Sciences

PHIL 6240/8240 | Lisa Rasmussen | Thursday 11:30 am – 2:15 pm

Designed to identify the fundamental elements that characterize not only methodologically grounded but also morally appropriate scientific research. Class discussion and readings focus on key issues in biological and behavioral research including informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, risk-benefit assessments, mechanisms for protecting animal and human research subjects, international research, vulnerable populations, conflicts of interest and data management, publication ethics, intellectual property issues and the politics of research.

Latin American and Caribbean Thought

PHIL 6300 | Pedro Monque Lopez | Thursday 5:30 pm – 8:15 pm

An examination of Latin American and Caribbean philosophical thought from pre-conquest Indigenous worldviews to the present day. The course includes an emphasis on colonial and decolonial movements, as well as on ethnic, racial, class, national, and gender identities within Latin America and the Caribbean.