PHL 340 Current Debates About Sexuality  (fall 2007/ winter, spring 2008)

Contemporary controversies over sexual behavior examined in the context of historical, legal, and philosophical research on sexual practices. The political questions of freedom, equality, and tolerance will be raised in relation to pornography, sex education, same-sex eroticism, polygamy, fetishism and S/M, swinging, prostitution, stripping, and autoeroticism.

 

EWS 441 Women, Health, and Social Justice  (fall 2007/ winter, spring[honors] 2008)

This course will examine the centrality of health issues to women’s political movements, and the threats to health posed by one’s gender, racial and economic status.  This course will also investigate concrete contemporary controversies over genital and cosmetic surgery, abortion, anorexia, and sexually transmitted diseases--and the ways that public health problems are barometers of injustice.

 

PHL 480 Social and Political Philosophy (fall 2007)

Major ideas and figures in political philosophy. Topics include democratic and other models of political legitimacy; limits of governmental power; citizenship rights and responsibilities; justifications for war; conditions for international cooperation; and theories of justice, equality, and freedom.

 

PHIL 460 Philosophy Senior Seminar  (spring 2008)

The Situated Thinker: Autobiographical Texts by Philosophers:

Students will read a selection of autobiographical writings by both contemporary and historical figures, which cover issues, such as, what motivates a person to pursue philosophy, the relationships between personal and philosophical commitments, the religious and cultural backgrounds of philosophers, how professional philosophy changed over the last century as reflected in the life stories of philosophers, philosophical writing as a personal confession of belief and values, and seeing the 20th Century through the eyes of philosophers.

 

PHIL 320 American Philosophy  (fall 2008)

The history of philosophy in the U.S., focusing on the influences of Puritanism, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Pragmatism.  Topics include idealism vs. realism, reason vs. imagination, naturalism, and the intellectual role of philosophy.  Figures may include: Edwards, Jefferson, Emerson, Royce, Peirce, James, Santayana, Dewey, West, and Rorty. 

 

PHL 330 Ethics, Environment, & Society (winter 2009)

This course will examine historically important writings by environmental activists using traditional ethical theories (utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics), political philosophy (conceptions of political rights, equality, and justice), and feminist theory (ecofeminism, liberal, neo-Marxist, and radical feminism).  We will pay particular attention to the relationship between environmental degradation and public health, and the challenges of climate change.

 

PHL 206 Philosophy through Children's Literature (spring 2009)

Introduction to philosophical ideas and issues using children’s stories and classic philosophical texts. Topics include the mind/body problem, the structure of a just society, the problem of evil, and the criteria of rationality. Stories from different ethnic, national, and religious traditions will be introduced.

 

Phl 470 Philosophical Issues in Gender Studies

Course covers political, epistemological, and metaphysical issues raised by studies of gender difference. Topics include the origins of gender traits, gender and biological sex, gender and sexuality, transsexualism, the transgender and intersex movements, gender across cultures, and the social stigma of femininity.

 

Office Location: Building 1, Room 319-B        Phone: 909-869-4453;       Email: ljshrage@csupomona.edu

Philosophy Department Office: 909-869-4766; sebaird@csupomona.edu  (if you are enrolled in one of my courses, check the Bb course materials for my office hours and syllabus; if you are not enrolled, check with the department office).