Syllabus - PHIL 306 Professor Tom Atchison
Philosophy and Sexuality Email: Thomas.Atchison@metrostate.edu
Spring Semester 2020 Office hours: Wednesday 1-5 and by appointment
Credits earned: 4 Office: 328B St. John’s Hall (St. Paul Campus) - PH 651-793-1493
Email is the best way to reach me quickly. My office phone is seldom answered or checked
Course Objectives and Topics
I have ordered one textbook for this class: The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings edited by Raja Halwani, Alan Soble, Sarah Hoffman, Jacob Held, Rowman & Littlefield; 7th edition, 2017
Other required class readings will be photocopied and handed out in class or will be made available online.
Please bring the assigned reading to class with you each week (printed out or on a device).
Please make sure your Metro State email account is working and check regularly for class related emails -- this course is especially likely to be revised on the fly.
Conduct of the Course
Class time will be devoted almost entirely to discussion – some in small groups, some all together. Students will be expected to take a good deal of initiative for determining the direction and focus of that discussion and, to some extent, of the course as a whole.
Much of our discussion will focus on understanding and evaluating the things we read. This will work well only if you have done the assigned reading carefully -- often twice or three times -- and given it some careful thought. In philosophy we are interested not in the information that can be extracted from a text, nor simply in the conclusions or opinions that an author expresses; we are primarily interested in understanding and assessing the reasoning that an author uses to try to establish or support those conclusions. This requires a very careful sort of reading.
The point of reading these texts is not only to understand what some great minds have produced. A guided tour through the Museum of Great Ideas is a very good thing, but not the best thing that philosophy has to offer. Better is the opportunity to learn to think for yourself. The readings provide models of careful and/or creative thinking, challenges to our prejudices and assumptions, and starting points for our own reflections. But the only way to learn to philosophize is to enter the conversation yourself. In this way a course in philosophy is more like a course in drawing or sculpture -- a studio art course -- than like a course in art history or art appreciation. You can’t learn to draw by just watching other people draw, and you can’t learn to do philosophy by just listening and reading. You have to express your views and expose them to other people’s critical reactions.
Groundrules for class discussion
In my view, high quality class discussion is informed by careful reading of assigned texts, respectful of the other participants, relevant to the issues we are trying to discuss and thoughtful in that points are made or questions are raised that help us move toward greater understanding. I believe the following guidelines help foster this kind of discussion:
Assignments and Grading
Note: I do not use a point system for grading: I assign letter grades to various assignments, and I determine your final grade by computing a weighted average of those letter grades.
Reading assignments
I expect you to find time (several hours) to do the reading for each class and to come prepared to discuss it. Come to class ready to say what you found interesting, what you found confusing, questionable, or just plain wrong, what seemed to you to be the most important claims made, and what arguments or justifications were offered for those claims. Expect that you will need to read the assignments more than once to understand them adequately, and plan your time accordingly.
Reading response papers
20 % of your grade will be earned by submitting brief (a page or two, typed, double-spaced) responses to the readings for each class. These must be turned in at (or preferably emailed by) the beginning of the class period to get full credit. Late papers get no more than 1/2 credit. If you must miss class, send in your response paper by e-mail anyway. Each of these papers should contain: 1) a brief, concise statement of what you take to be the main point (or points) made in the reading) and 2) your questions, objections, observations and/or reactions to the reading for that class. I will not grade these, but I will reject any that do not seem to be based on a reasonably conscientious reading of the assignment for that week. You can miss one or two of these and still earn an ‘A’ for this part of the course work, but missing more will be penalized on the following schedule: 85% completed = A; 70% = B; 60% = C; 50% = D; less than 50% = F. I will also notice and reward particularly perceptive or thoughtful response papers.
Class discussion
20% of your grade will also be determined by my evaluation of the quality of your participation in class discussions. Just showing up and paying attention earns a C for this component; occasionally making helpful contributions earns a B; regularly making helpful contributions earns an A. Helpful contributions include: asking pertinent questions, answering questions asked by the instructor or by other students, expressing your views about the texts or topics we are discussing, responding (relevantly and respectfully) to the views expressed by others. Taking more than your fair share of ‘air time’ and/or taking the discussion ‘off topic’ are generally not helpful.
Position Papers
You will be asked to write 3 short (4-6 page) papers explaining and supporting your position on an interpretive or substantive question arising from one or more of the texts we study. I will provide topics for you to choose from. Each paper will count for 20% of your grade. Please keep copies of all the work you hand in.
Note: I try hard to base my evaluation of your work on your understanding of the reading, the quality of your reasoning and questioning, and the clarity and effectiveness of your expression of your thoughts, not on whether I agree with your philosophical theories, ideas, or opinions.
Please keep copies of all the work you hand in.
Time commitment outside of class
In accordance with Metropolitan State University guidelines, I've designed this course with the expectation that students will do 2-3 hours of course-related work outside of class for every hour spent in class. In other words, you should expect to spend 7-10 hours a week outside of class working on this course.
Needed reading and writing skills
Although there are no specific prerequisites for this course, it is an upper-division course. This means I assume you have the following reading and writing skills, and assignments are made with this expectation in mind:
Course Policies
Attendance
I do not require attendance per se, but a significant part of your grade is determined by class discussion. Students who do not attend class regularly are giving up that portion of their final grade. I strongly advise regular attendance (and prompt completion of response papers) because the material in this course is relatively difficult and confusing, and few students will be able to do well on their papers without the explanations and practice provided in class.
Late work
Response papers must be turned in at (or before) the beginning of class to receive full credit. Late response papers will receive half credit. In fairness to students who turn their position papers in on time, I will subtract one grade (e.g., B+ to B) for each day that a position paper is late.
Incompletes
I will give incomplete grades only to students who have satisfactorily completed most of the course work and who are unable to finish on time because of circumstances beyond their control.
Plagiarism
All work submitted for this course must be your own. Plagiarism is the academic ‘sin’ of presenting someone else’s work as your own. It is plagiarism if you copy something verbatim (word for word) from a published source, from the Internet, or from another student. It is still plagiarism if you rearrange, paraphrase, condense, or summarize someone else’s work without making clear to your reader what is your contribution and what is taken from your source. If the exact wording comes from your source, then use quotation marks. If the idea comes from someone else, give him or her credit for it. The way to do this is to cite your sources. There is a clear and detailed explanation of various forms of plagiarism and of proper citation practices at http://cmsw.mit.edu/writing-and-communication-center/avoiding-plagiarism. I will give a grade of ‘F’ to any student who submits plagiarized work for this course.
Disability Services
It is the policy and practice of the university to create inclusive learning environments. If there are aspects of the instruction or design of this course that result in barriers to your inclusion or to accurate assessment of achievement—such as time-limited exams, inaccessible web content, or the use of non-captioned videos—please notify the instructor as soon as possible. Students are also welcome to contact the Center for Accessibility Resources.
The Center for Accessibility Resources is located in New Main, room L223. Phone number is 651-793-1549 and email is Accessibility.Resources@metrostate.edu.
University Non-Attendance and Reporting Policy and Procedure
The purpose of the Non-Attendance and Reporting Policy is to ensure Federal Title IV regulations are adhered to with respect to a student’s enrollment level for the purpose of calculating and paying financial aid. While Metropolitan State University is not required to take attendance, Federal Title IV financial aid regulations require a procedure to establish that students have attended, at a minimum, one day of class for each course in which the student’s enrollment status was used to determine eligibility for the Pell Grant Program. In addition, the university needs to determine a last date of attendance for those students who receive all failing grades or unofficially withdraw.
Attendance is defined based on course delivery mode. A student is “in attendance” if he or she meets the following conditions before the end of the second week of the course:
• Classroom Courses – the student is present in the classroom.
In other words, if you do not show up for at least one of the first two class sessions for this course I will be required to report you as “non-attending” and you will automatically be dropped from the class.
Drop date, Tuition Refunds; Withdrawal deadline
Withdrawing from courses after the drop deadline (Friday, January 17) will result in a ‘W’ on your record, will eliminate any possibility of a refund of the tuition you have paid, and may have an impact on your financial aid. My advice is to determine quickly whether or not this is the right course for you and to drop before that deadline, if it is not.
The last day to withdraw from this course is April 13, 2020.
Note: The following catalog items are now required to be included in all syllabi.
This introductory course explores the most basic ideas about human sexuality and sexual identity: What does it mean to be a woman or a man? What does it mean to have a sexual identity? Is there such a thing as "normal" sex? How has sexuality been socially regulated in the past and how is it currently regulated? How can people evaluate such "regulations"? How do ideas about sexuality influence gender, ethnic, racial and other stereotypes? What sorts of ideas do people have about the nature of their bodies? Students develop basic philosophical skills in order to sort out these questions. Topics usually include: eroticism, desire, homophobia, sexual violence, pornography, prostitution, and sexual imagery in popular culture, love and romance.
Goal 06 - Humanities/Fine Arts
Goal 07 - Human Diversity