Pop Ethics

This site is a display copy of the course site used by students. Links to submission sites, Zoom recordings, and other documents limited to students have been deleted or disabled. Links to publicly available resources remain.

Welcome to PHIL 103: Introduction to Ethics

"What we need is awareness, we can't get careless

You say what is this?

My beloved let’s get down to business"

"Fight the Power," Public Enemy

Meet Your Instructor

Hi, I'm Bailey Szustak. My pronouns are she/them. I am a fifth year doctoral student in Philosophy, with a concentration in Gender and Women's Studies. Please refer to me as Ms. Szustak [sus-tack], Ms. S, or Your Grace, as my parents have reserved proprietary rights to use of my first name. (The last one is a joke, but seriously, no first name).

My research is primarily in body aesthetics, feminist philosophy, critical race theory, and philosophy of art. I also work on projects in philosophy of asexuality, ethics, and inclusive teaching and learning.

I am a practicing artist, primarily welding and painting. I am also a proud cat mom and an enthusiast of dinosaurs, LEGOs, and afternoon naps.

Class Meetings

MWF 2:00-2:50 EST

Contact Info

Email: bszust2@uic.edu

Call or text: (864) 256-0928

Drop-In Hours: M 3-4 CST, Th 2-3 CST

Drop-In Hours will be held over Zoom for video meetings, with chat meetings available in Discord.

We will use the class Zoom for Drop-In Hours.

Email is my preferred method of contact, but I am open to texting or calling if needed, especially in an emergency situation. Please do not abuse this option.

I check email twice a day, but it may take me up to 48 hours to respond.

Land Acknowledgment

Though we are meeting online, the University of Illinois Chicago campus inhabits spaces built on the occupied original homelands of the Council of Three Fires: The Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Odawa Nations; and other Nations such as the Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Miami, and many other Indigenous Peoples. We honor those who call this land home.

UIC also inhabits space formerly home to the Hull-House social settlement and other formerly public and immigrant spaces in Chicago's Near West Side.

Course Description

Pop culture is pervasive and influential within our society and lives. It can connect people in fan communities, open doors of understanding between different groups of people, and inspire social change. It can also go wrong, deepening ideological and political divides, reinforcing negative stereotypes, and stunting critical awareness and self-evaluation. Our topic for this semester is to investigate how popular media such as movies, television, and popular fiction critique, reflect, and inspire people and society, and how it can affect the ways we understand ourselves, by exploring issues of representation, morality, and social justice in pop culture. We will also explore how pop culture and social media intersect with social justice and activism.

By investigating text, video, audio, and other mediums of communication, this course seeks to develop your critical capacity to investigate aspects of popular culture in a social and historical context, and to apply philosophical skills and concepts to a variety of materials, issues, and actions.

Importantly, the core of this class is the aim of philosophical exploration and discovery. My expectation is that together we will use methods and ideas from philosophy to explore topics relevant to our everyday lives. Thus, I am less concerned with you learning any specific content, and more concerned with how you approach, discuss, analyze, connect, reflect on, and respond to our materials and topics. Our syllabus contains materials in areas that I am most familiar with--race and gender, television and film--as our starting point, but I intend for you to bring your own knowledge, resources, and experiences to the class to share so that we can discover and learn together.

Marvel character Black Panther in front of colorful background

Pedagogy

This course is developed under the premise that knowledge is created and generated in multiple ways (i.e. through oral traditions, poetry and music, film, land-based traditions, lived experiences, spirituality & ceremony, scientific & academic research, lost traditions, fiction and science fiction etc.) and that we must resist the colonialist limits of Western ontologies that delegitimize other ways of knowing and being. As such, the readings, activities, videos, and assignments that I have curated in this course will draw on these various ways of knowing and learning. Each week will combine a mix of reading, viewing/listening, discussion, case studies, etc. These will be put into conversation with academic research, empirical evidence, and peer-reviewed journal articles.

Your lived experience and interactions with other humans are foundational to engaging with the course materials. This engagement could be rooted in the communities in which you have developed relationships (i.e. work, family, social circles, social organizations, activist groups, ethnocultural and/or religious communities, recreational/artistic/sporting communities, etc.). It might also develop through active engagement in social movements/groups.

I would like to create a classroom space that opens up discussion between you and your classmates. This will be a place to grapple with the course materials in a respectful and thoughtful manner – it is not the same as comments on Facebook or YouTube – but rather a space for careful, humble, and serious discussion and debate. It should be a place where you are open to being challenged about your politics and positions, but also a space where your critiques should be tempered by your understanding that folks are entering this space with a desire to learn and change. Our interactions, comments, and dialogue must operate under the maxim: Do No Harm. This means that we should attempt to create a space of care, mutual respect, accountability and trust – this is very difficult to do in any social space.

While this is a space of learning, it is also a space that seeks to resist the structures of oppression that permeate our day-to-day interactions. As such, I urge all students to be self-reflexive about behaviors or comments that have been identified as patriarchal, misogynist, classist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, et cetera. This self-reflection applies to me as well. We should also be respectful that some of us may have strong religious beliefs, be veterans or related to veterans, work in law enforcement or have family members who do, or hold political views you don't agree with, among other differences. Our differences in identity, positionality, and beliefs will be especially visible and relevant in an ethics course centered on identity and social justice issues, which requires us to be extra cognizant of how we express ourselves. We are all in a process of learning and unlearning these logics that dominate our society, so there is no expectation here that anyone is self-actualized and perfect – all I ask is that you are mindful that how what you think, say and/or the way in which you interact with others is circumscribed by these forces.

Flexibility and Wellbeing

I want to state clearly that your wellbeing, mental and physical, is my first priority. I am building a lot of flexibility into the class from the start, but I am also willing to work with anyone who needs additional support, such as connecting you to resources, extending assignment due dates, or providing additional help in office hours. College is difficult enough in ordinary circumstances and we are in extraordinary circumstances right now. Please communicate with me if you are experiencing anything that could affect your participation and/or success in this class, and we can work together to find solutions.

Your mental health is just as important as your physical health, so I encourage you to take mental health days as needed and reach out to support resources. If you would like any assistance in finding or contacting resources and/or support services for any issue, please let me know. You will find links to resources under the resource page on this site.

I hope that we can build a community of support and care for one another together in this class despite being physically distanced.

"You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time."

-Dr. Angela Davis

Course Goals

We will build a community of trust, respect, and support who will work together in philosophical exploration
We will develop and practice the skills and activity of "philosophizing", i.e. philosophical investigation
Skills and methods:
- Understanding key ethical concepts
- Applying ethical concepts to theoretical and practical examples
- Drawing connections between concepts, ideas, and examples
- Asking philosophical questions
- Using dialogue to collaborate with others in philosophical exploration
- Analyzing issues and events from our lives and experiences using ethical and philosophical methods

Materials

There are no required texts for this course.

All assigned materials, including readings and videos, will be available on the Weekly Schedule page on this course site. Documents are in the Drive folder at the top organized by week. Web links are posted in the week's breakdown.

Technology

All class meetings will take place over Zoom.

Out-of-class discussions will be held over Discord.

Accommodations and Accessibility

It is my goal to make this class as accessible as possible for all students. I am still learning, however, particularly in regards to online teaching, so please do not hesitate to make a suggestion or ask for me to make a change.

All video and audio materials will be captioned and/or come with a transcript. I may occasionally suggest, but not require, an audio or video item that is not captioned as a complement to an assigned material, but these will be limited as much as possible. In such cases, I will do my best to create captions/transcripts. All text materials will be accessible to screen readers.

Synchronous class sessions will primarily involve small group or total class discussions, with options for video/audio or text chat participation.

Disability Accommodation Policy

UIC is committed to full inclusion and participation of people with disabilities in all aspects of university life. Students who face or anticipate disability-related barriers while at UIC should connect with the Disability Resource Center (DRC) at drc.uic.edu, drc@uic.edu, or at (312) 413-2183 to create a plan for reasonable accommodations. In order to receive accommodations, students must disclose disability to the DRC, complete an interactive registration process with the DRC, and provide their course instructor with a Letter of Accommodation (LOA). Course instructors in receipt of an LOA will work with the student and the DRC to implement approved accommodations.

Policies

Note: It is your responsibility to read these policies carefully and ask for clarification, if necessary. University, program, and course policies are not negotiable. By remaining enrolled in this course, you are implicitly agreeing to abide by these policies and accept the consequences if you violate them.

Religious Holiday Observance Policy

Students who wish to observe their religious holidays must notify the instructor by the tenth day of the term that they will be absent unless their religious holiday is observed on or before the tenth day. In such cases, the student shall notify the instructor at least five days in advance of the date when he or she will be absent. Please refer to the following calendar:

https://oae.uic.edu/religious-calendar/

Academic Integrity Policy

A student who submits work, at any stage of the writing process, which in whole or part has been written by someone else or which contains passages quoted or paraphrased from another’s work without acknowledgment (quotation marks, citation, etc.), has plagiarized. Maintain your integrity when completing assignments and give credit where it is due. If you are ever unsure about what constitutes plagiarism, ask me. Students who are found to have plagiarized may be subject to various disciplinary actions, including a failing grade on a particular assignment or failure of the entire course; I may also file an incident report with the Office of the Dean of Students. For more information about violating academic integrity and its consequences, consult the website of the UIC Office of the Dean of Students at http://www.uic.edu/depts/dos/studentconductprocess.shtml.

Communication Policies

When emailing, please contact me from your UIC email address, using an informative subject line, such as “Phil 103 question about reflection 1.” Include a salutation addressing me by name and sign it with your name. Remember that email, while it seems like a casual form of communication, requires professionalism in academic and work-related contexts. Also, please do not send me an attachment without a message preceding it.

If you call or text, please identify yourself in the message. Unless it is an emergency situation, it may take awhile for me to respond. If your emergency is safety or medical related, you should contact emergency services. I am not trained to assist in any crisis, but I can work to connect you with appropriate resources if you need assistance. Finally, I'm from the flip phone generation--I have no fluency in emojis or chat speak.

Assignments

Components

Participation and Attendance: PDF Link to Participation Rubric

Submit Participation Documentation Here: This is a Google Form that allows you to upload documents/items in any format (but please submit written document in .docx or .pdf only). Upload to the appropriate 2-week period for each submission.

Attendance is mandatory for all class sessions, with 5 free absences (no reason needed) available for the semester. If you exceed five absences, I will ask that you meet with me to discuss your situation.

Homework: I will occasionally ask you to complete small, quick tasks as preparation for class. These may include posting in the class Discord or submitting a short (1-2 paragraph) response to a prompt. The assignments should take no more than half an hour to complete. Link to Handout: Guide to Homework
Short Reflections: During the semester, you will submit three short (approximately 250 word) reflections in response to class material in the weeks prior to the due date. Link to Handout: Guide to Short Reflections

Submit Short Reflections Here:

- Reflection 1 due: Saturday 2/13
- Reflection 2 due: Saturday 3/20
- Reflection 3 due: Saturday 4/24
Analysis Papers: During the semester, you will complete two 2-page (double-spaced) analysis papers responding to an assigned reading. For this analysis, you will either criticize, defend, or apply an argument or concept from one of the specified texts.

Submit Analysis Papers Here:

- Analysis 1 due: Saturday 2/27
  - PDF Link: Analysis 1 Prompt
  - Web Link: The Nib, "Lighten Up" or PDF Link: Wimberly, "Lighten Up" (I recommend reading on the webpage, but if you need to download the pdf is a copy).
  - PDF Link: Lowry, "They've Gotta Have Us"
- Analysis 2 due: CANCELLED
Creative Work: For this assignment, you will choose from one of three options: an interview, a personal narrative, or a creative work relating to a course topic. Further instructions will be given for each option. Link to Handout: Creative Work Guide

Submit Proposals and Creative Work Here

- Creative work proposal due by: Wednesday 3/31
- Creative work due: Saturday 4/17

Grade Breakdown

PDF Link: Point Breakdown and Grade Scale

Mixtape

Your final project for this course will be to create a "mixtape" in response to the class. Your mixtape will be a conceptual multimedia list, which can be made up of songs, essays, artworks, podcasts, videos, or any other media. At least four items should be sources assigned from the course, with four to eight additional items that you select.

The mixtape should serve as a reflection on and synthesis of key ideas and conversations in the course, bridging culture and philosophy. It can be a reflection on the entire course, or on a particular topic. The mixtape should have a narrative arc--that is, there should be some sort of story or argument that is conveying a philosophical idea in connection to pop culture. You should consider what you would like your intended audience to experience, feel, or learn as a result of exploring the mixtape. To accomplish this, think about the flow of the mix--is it smooth and gradual, or does it have sharp contrasts?

In addition to the mixtape list, you will provide "liner notes". Each item on your mixtape should be accompanied by a 400-600 word (around 2-pages double-spaced) liner narrative liner note, which together should explain what you intended to convey, evoke, incite, and/or inspire through your mixtape. These liner notes should serve as your explanation and justification of the narrative arc and intended message of your curated list.

Finally, you will include an "album cover". This can be an original work in any visual medium, or a borrowed work with appropriate citation and permission from the artist (or else public domain).

I encourage you to use the earlier assignments as a starting point for your mixtape, expanding ideas from your reflections or analysis papers, and/or including your creative work as an item.

To help you develop the mixtape over the course of the semester, you will submit items in stages. Your items can change from your initial submissions, but you should aim to not have to create the entire project from scratch right before finals. Link to Handout: Mixtape Guide

Submit Mixtape Items and Final Project Here