This activity helps students apply various theories in the philosophy of race to popular race “memes” that students may have seen on social media. It helps students practice their understanding of those theories of race and allows them to see how popular memes embody (perhaps problematically) those theories.
This activity is a way to facilitate discussion about Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract by drawing out the implications of listening to different kinds of voices. Students are assigned to read a passage from The Racial Contract and to listen to one podcast episode, as a way to prepare for this in-class activity. The podcast episode provides a series of concrete examples of the racial contract that dramatize the stakes of non-ideal theory, especially in relation to the settler nation states of Canada and US America.
This activity supports a discussion of the different views of the early Confucians and Zhuangzi on the ethics of funeral practices by priming students’ interest and engagement using a group discussion activity.
This series of activities helps students think about epistemic dependence in their own lives.
Students write about an instance of epistemic injustice in their own lives.
In the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is asking an important philosophical question: what obligations do I owe to society when society has broken down (e.g. why should I fulfill my social obligation to fight in this civil war when the civil war itself represents a complete breakdown of society and society’s obligations to people). This activity helps students connect that question with their own lives.
This activity helps students think more deeply about the important Upanishadic claim “Atman is Brahman.”
This series of activities helps students come to grips with the concept of samsara in Buddhism and Hinduism.
The activity helps motivate the Confucian focus on the relationship between ritual activity (li) and ethics.
The Katha Upanishad describes the Self in many different ways: this activity draws students attention to these descriptions.