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Ada Jaarsma

Exercise: Listening to Non-Ideal Theory

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.

Primer: Philosophical Podcasting

This primer describes one way of bringing philosophical content to life by integrating podcasts with curriculum. Audio is a way to expand the range of voices, styles and genres that students encounter in philosophy; as an option, students create audio as well. This lends itself to classes that seek to bridge philosophy with real-life experiences, phenomena or case-studies: classes like applied ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy of science and feminist philosophy.