TEACHING
Brief Thoughts on Teaching
I think education is at its best when it doesn’t simply change what we think, but also who we are. In this sense, I espouse a classical view of education, as training in a set of intellectual virtues – curiosity, interpretive charity, and epistemic humility – but also virtues associated with democracy – civility, tolerance, critical thought, and sympathy with those less fortunate than us. I hope that students take from my classes new tools to make sense of the world. But I also hope that they are changed in a more fundamental way – not in the sense that they will, by the end of the term, share my values or opinions – but rather that, over the course of our time together, they come to learn and adopt as their own a certain way of being in the world that arises out of the collective practice of reading, thinking, and deliberating about matters of importance with a group of people who are very different from them. This way of being, in my view, is crucial for the flourishing of any pluralistic democracy, and so I see it as a, if not the, central goal of modern education.
I think education is at its best when it doesn’t simply change what we think, but also who we are. In this sense, I espouse a classical view of education, as training in a set of intellectual virtues – curiosity, interpretive charity, and epistemic humility – but also virtues associated with democracy – civility, tolerance, critical thought, and sympathy with those less fortunate than us. I hope that students take from my classes new tools to make sense of the world. But I also hope that they are changed in a more fundamental way – not in the sense that they will, by the end of the term, share my values or opinions – but rather that, over the course of our time together, they come to learn and adopt as their own a certain way of being in the world that arises out of the collective practice of reading, thinking, and deliberating about matters of importance with a group of people who are very different from them. This way of being, in my view, is crucial for the flourishing of any pluralistic democracy, and so I see it as a, if not the, central goal of modern education.
Teaching Expertise
- Sociology of Culture / Cultural Sociology
- Sociology of Religion
- Social and Cultural Theory
- Theory and Method in Religious Studies
- Political Philosophy
Teaching Experience
Co-Instructor: SOC95 ('Postmodernization') Sociology Department, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Winter 2021 & Winter 2022
Teaching Fellow: PHIL 204 ('Life, Death & Meaning') Philosophy Department, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada
Fall 2019
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 296 (‘Animals and Society’) Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Winter 2018
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 347 (‘Moral Responsibility’) Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Fall 2017
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 259 (‘Critical Thinking’) Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Fall 2017
Co-Taught: RELS 401 (‘Spiritual but not Religious – Honours Seminar’) School of Religion, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Winter 2017
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 275 (‘Thinking Gender, Sex and Love’) Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Fall 2016
Teaching Assistant: RELS 161 (‘Problems in Religion and Culture’), Religious Studies Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Fall/Winter 2016-2017
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 201 (‘Philosophy and Medicine’), Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Winter 2016
Co-Taught: RELS 401 (‘Spiritual But Not Religious – Honours Seminar’), School of Religion, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Winter 2015
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 115 (‘New Eyes on Ancient Problems’), Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Fall/Winter 2014-2015
Guest Lecturer: RELS 161, School of Religion, Queen’s University, Kingston
Date(s): February 24, 2015; February 22, 2016; February 15, 2017
Winter 2021 & Winter 2022
- This course examined the debates over the authority of science in our late or post-modern age from a cultural sociological perspective.
Teaching Fellow: PHIL 204 ('Life, Death & Meaning') Philosophy Department, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada
Fall 2019
- Course Description: Many people wish to live a meaningful life. But what exactly does this mean? Is it even coherent to speak of a life as being full (or void) of meaning? And if it is, does meaning rest in the eye of the beholder or is it open to objective evaluation? Furthermore, are there necessary conditions (e.g. social, cultural or economic) to give a life meaning? And how might the fact of human mortality shape our thinking on the subject? In this course we will consider a variety of philosophical texts, ancient and contemporary, to help us think through these and other relevant questions. We will also, when useful, borrow insights offered by the social sciences. Our aim will be to grapple with the question of meaning in life, both in the abstract and as it relates to our everyday experience. (For the course syllabus see here).
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 296 (‘Animals and Society’) Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Winter 2018
- This course introduced students to historical and contemporary debates regarding the treatment of nonhuman animals within Western societies, and explored our ethical responsibilities toward them.
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 347 (‘Moral Responsibility’) Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Fall 2017
- This course focused on contemporary work on the nature of moral responsibility. Questions considered included responsibility for attitudes, the nature of blame, the relevance of personal history to a person’s blameworthiness, the difference between being and holding responsible, and whether moral ignorance is at least a partial excuse for morally wrong conduct.
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 259 (‘Critical Thinking’) Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Fall 2017
- This online course aimed to help students to think critically. Students learned how to evaluate arguments, claims, beliefs, as well as how to make solid arguments of their own.
Co-Taught: RELS 401 (‘Spiritual but not Religious – Honours Seminar’) School of Religion, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Winter 2017
- This was a fourth-year honours seminar with a focus on critically engaging with contemporary ‘Spiritual but not Religious’ (SBNR) discourses. (For course syllabus, see here).
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 275 (‘Thinking Gender, Sex and Love’) Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Fall 2016
- This course sought to examine what is at stake in how we think about gender, sex, and love. Using classical and contemporary philosophical texts we examined presuppositions and alternative possibilities.
Teaching Assistant: RELS 161 (‘Problems in Religion and Culture’), Religious Studies Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Fall/Winter 2016-2017
- This course explored religious issues in culture, literature, politics and social ethics.
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 201 (‘Philosophy and Medicine’), Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Winter 2016
- This course was about evidence, diseases and the practice of medicine. Working closely with empirical examples, we looked at some big questions concerning medicine.
Co-Taught: RELS 401 (‘Spiritual But Not Religious – Honours Seminar’), School of Religion, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Winter 2015
- This was a fourth-year honours seminar with a focus on critically engaging with contemporary ‘Spiritual but not Religious’ (SBNR) discourses. (For course syllabus, see here).
Teaching Assistant: PHIL 115 (‘New Eyes on Ancient Problems’), Philosophy Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Fall/Winter 2014-2015
- This course offered an introduction to some of the fundamental problems, concepts and arguments of philosophy. It sought to explore issues including the scope of, human knowledge, the nature of mind, personal identity, free will, the nature of morality, and political theory.
Guest Lecturer: RELS 161, School of Religion, Queen’s University, Kingston
Date(s): February 24, 2015; February 22, 2016; February 15, 2017
- Gave a lecture on the history, and social and political implications, of the category ‘Spiritual but not Religious’ in the contemporary West.