This class will examine the moral and political implications of the food we eat.  Topics we’ll cover include genetically modified organisms, factory farming, animal rights and welfare, agricultural pollution, agricultural subsidies, third world hunger, some feminist implications of what and how we eat, the obesity epidemic, and the industrial food system and its alternatives.  In the process, I would like us to get a robust sense of where our food comes from, what is in it, and what sort of economic, political and social fallout attends its consumption.  

Do you love me?  The answer to this question can be emotional, profound, spontaneous, or trivial.  It is, almost certainly, never philosophical.  To answer this question properly, however, requires that we grapple seriously with the definition, history, implications, and pitfalls of love.  This course aims to give students the theoretical tools to assess something that is both a longstanding philosophical concept and one of the most pressing issues in their personal and social lives.  The hope is that students will challenge their fundamental assumptions about the roles and meanings that love plays in their lives.  More often than not, these assumptions quietly underpin their daily lives and remain invisible to philosophical investigation.

Okay, will you have sex with me?  This question is a pressing as it is perplexing.  What, exactly, is sex?  Why do we want it?  What dangers—moral, social, and physical—do we run when we have it?  And what, if any, relation do these questions have to the initial guiding question of this class? 

The aim of this course is to introduce students to both historical and contemporary philosophical discussions surrounding the topics of sex and love.  This course will strengthen students’ critical thinking skills and their ability to read and write about moral and social/political philosophy.  This is an approved course for the Gender Studies minor, an interdisciplinary minor in the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.  If you would like more information on the Gender Studies minor, contact genderstudies@uml.edu.