After this course you will be able to:
- critically reflect on the concept of dehumanization and its relation to ethics
- identify positions and counter-positions in present-day debates related to dehumanization;
- apply the academic discussions to "current affairs" in the field of gender, refugee/migration, and critical philosophy of race.
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The Dehumanization of the Widow, the Orphan and the Stranger
The aim of this class is to reflect on the concept and process of dehumanization and how this contributes to questions of ethics and morality in contemporary societies. When we question someone’s humanity, what do we mean, and what are we trying to do? How has the concept of the human, or humanity, expanded or contracted to include more or fewer beings, and why? How do human rights relate to dehumanization? How and why are human persons subject to dehumanization? How does this affect the dehumanizer as well as the dehumanised?
As our ‘red thread’, we will take the biblical injunction to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger. Translating this into philosophy we will consider the nature of dehumanization in relation to gender, refugees and race. Readings and texts will draw from historical sources and a wide range of philosophical thinkers which will most likely include Arendt, Fanon, Marx, Agamben, etc. We will also try to read texts that connect the notion of dehumanization to literature on the psychological definition of dehumanization, post-colonial theory, and military ethics.
This course will build upon, by challenging or putting into question, what you have learned in your previous philosophical courses. I will not assume you are familiar with these scholars but will assume a basic familiarity with intersectional feminism and post-colonial theory.
Our first meeting on February 4th will be a short practical one to get to know each other and to decide on readings.
The next two sessions will be dedicated to Arendt.
After that we will spend two sessions on Fanon and one session on Agamben.
After these meetings, students are expected to articulate, in the form of a short position paper [graded, 25%] their own position on one of these readings.
Readings for period 4 will be decided together on February 4th, please come with ideas.
During these meetings, students will be asked to present/lead discussion one of these monographs or articles; students are expected to write a concise summentary (fusion of summary and commentary) about one of these readings [graded, 25%].
The final assignment, due in June, is an independant paper on an approved topic of choice related to the concept of dehumanization [graded, 50%].
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