Spring 2023 Course Offerings
Spring 2023 courses are now posted online. We are offering new seminars and global philosophy and religion courses, and detailed information is below. Please note that the following information is subject to change.
For the most up-to-date and comprehensive course schedule, including meeting times, course additions, cancellations, and room assignments, refer to the Banner Class Schedule on the Registrar’s website. For curriculum information, see the Undergraduate Full-Time Day Programs catalog.
Banner listings go live on October 24. The first day of spring registration is November 14 for continuing undergraduate students (see the Academic Calendar). Students can check their time ticket for registration via myNortheastern (click here for instructions).
Global Philosophy and Religion
Instructor: Jung Lee (ju.lee@northeastern.edu)
Sequence: M/W 2:50pm-4:30pm
NUpath Attribute(s):Engaging Difference and Diversity, Employing Ethical Reasoning
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Religious Studies Major elective
- Religious Studies Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
- Information Ethics Minor elective
- Mindfulness Studies Minor
Description: Focuses on how traditions imagine the moral life in cross-cultural contexts. Topics may include ideals of human flourishing, notions of virtue and vice, and conceptions of self and community. Offers students an opportunity to learn methods of philosophical analysis and argumentation in cross-cultural contexts.
Instructor: Whitney Kelting (M.Kelting@northeastern.edu)
Sequence: M/W/Th. 10:30am-11:35am
NUpath Attribute(s): Interpreting Culture,
Employing Ethical Reasoning
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Religious Studies Major elective
- Religious Studies Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
- Information Ethics Minor elective
- Mindfulness Studies Minor
Description: Examines Hinduism, Jainism, Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto within South Asia (India) and east Asia (China and Japan). Combines readings in primary source materials (the religious texts of these traditions) with secondary examinations of the historical and doctrinal developments within each tradition and region. This course intends to give students a context in which to examine the ways in which religions develop in interlocking sociocultural and political contexts and to provide a grounding in the lived experiences of these religious traditions.
Instructor: Jung Lee (ju.lee@northeastern.edu)
Sequence: Tuesdays 4:35-7:35pm
NUpath Attribute(s): Interpreting Culture,
Employing Ethical Reasoning
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Religious Studies Major elective
- Religious Studies Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
- Information Ethics Minor elective
- Mindfulness Studies Minor
Description: Surveys the origins and development of the indigenous religious traditions of China, from the oracle bone divinations of the Shang Dynasty to the philosophical and religious traditions of Confucianism, Mohism, Yangism, Daoism, and Legalism. Identifies and elucidates those elements of ancient Chinese thought that have had the most lasting influence on the Chinese ethos and worldview. Studies the foundational texts of ancient China and also examines the relevant practices that helped to define the various traditions of thought. Focuses on how religious and philosophical ideas influenced the larger culture of Chinese life in regard to the arts, medicine, the social order, and government.
Instructor: Whitney Kelting (M.Kelting@northeastern.edu)
Sequence: M/Th. 11:45am-1:25pm
NUpath Attribute(s): NUpath Difference/Diversity, NUpath Integration Experience, NUpath Interpreting Culture
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Religious Studies Major elective
- Religious Studies Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
Description: Explores the relationship between religion, sound, and musical expression using the lenses of gender studies, cultural studies, and performance theory. Emphasizes the interpretive and symbolic understandings of sonic expressions of religiosity, including chanting, mantra use, choir and congregational singing, and speaking in tongues. Seeks to familiarize students with some of the key sonic expressions within the Christian, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions; to explore the methods of studying musical and sonic theology; and to analyze these traditions’ own debates about the use of sound and music in religious practice.
Please note: As of this year, this course is newly cross-listed with WGSS 2259 and JWSS 2259. Our Philosophy cross-listed section is still making its way through Banner but will be available for registration by November 14th.
Instructor: Lori Lefkovitz (l.lefkovitz@northeastern.edu)
Sequence: M/W 2:50-4:30pm
NUpath Attribute(s): NUpath Difference/Diversity, NUpath Interpreting Culture
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Religious Studies Major elective
- Religious Studies Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
Description: Introduces the representation of sex and gender in Jewish culture and religion. Explores varied representations of masculinity and femininity over time and place within Jewish communities; the role of biblical texts in the construction of Western conceptions of gender and sexuality; and how contemporary feminist, queer, and other sexual identities have influenced Jewish practices. Readings draw from a range of primary sources (memoirs, fiction, religious texts, etc.) and critical literature.
Seminars
Instructor: Kathleen Creel (k.creel@northeastern.edu)
Sequence: M/W/Th. 1:35-2:40pm
NUpath Attribute(s): NUpath Capstone Experience, NUpath Writing Intensive
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
- Information Ethics Minor elective
Description: Focuses on the nature of scientific method, scientific theories, and scientific explanations. Examines the central question of why science is thought to provide the most reliable account of the nature of reality. Requires prior completion of three philosophy courses (PHIL 1115 or PHIL 1215 recommended) or permission of instructor.
Instructor: Matthew Smith (ma.smith@northeastern.edu)
Sequence: M/Th. 11:45am-1:25pm
NUpath Attribute(s): NUpath Capstone Experience, NUpath Writing Intensive
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
- Information Ethics Minor elective
Description: Seeks to show what puzzles and problems result from an honest attempt to answer these questions in a reasonable way: What is the relation between mind and body? Is the mental merely a function of bodily process and behavior, or does it somehow exist “over and above” the material? How are self-knowledge and knowledge of other minds achieved, and what is the relation between words and thoughts? Examines classical sources, such as Descartes and Locke, and contemporary sources, such as Wittgenstein and Putnam. Also seeks to arrive at some answers-however tentative or provisional-to these questions. Constantly challenges students to think and write well about these difficult subjects. Requires prior completion of three philosophy courses or permission of instructor.
Instructor: Chad Lee-Stronach (c.lee-stronach@northeastern.edu)
Sequence: T/F 9:50-11:30am
NUpath Attribute(s): NUpath Capstone Experience, NUpath Writing Intensive
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
- Information Ethics Minor elective
Description:Explores the nature, ethics, and politics of power in society. Topics include: Why does social equality matter? Do race, gender, and other social identities encode domination or subordination? What is social power and how might it be measured? What is the relationship between social power and social justice? What are current institutional forms of social subordination in the world today — and are they justifiable? Includes readings, formal research and writing assignments, and basic formal methods from the computational social sciences.
Instructor: Fadeke Castor (n.castor@northeastern.edu)
Sequence: W/F 11:45am-1:25pm
NUpath Attribute(s): NUpath Capstone Experience, NUpath Writing Intensive
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Religious Studies Major elective
- Religious Studies Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
Description: In this course we will explore and critically engage the mutually constitutive categories of religion, race, and politics through the methods of cultural history, ethnography, lived religions that will inform our course readings. Various questions will be explored, including: How have colonialism and post-colonialism shaped the social and cultural categories of our historical and contemporary worlds? What histories have been centered and which ones have been marginalized? How has religion been constructed as a social category that reproduces relations of power or alternatively support social revolution and change? Throughout the semester our reflections will center theories of power, understandings of difference, and the construction of social structures over time.
Instructor: Serena Parekh (s.parekh@northeastern.edu)
Sequence: Thursday 4:35p-7:35p
Attribute(s): NUpath Capstone Experience, NUpath Ethical Reasoning, NUpath Societies/Institutions, NUpath Writing Intensive
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Religious Studies Major elective
- Religious Studies Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
- Information Ethics Minor elective
Description: Explores the theoretical, political, and philosophical foundations of the obligations that underlie global justice. Theoretical approaches include human rights, human capabilities, cosmopolitanism, particularism, and universalism. Examines nationalism and the particular set of obligations that it generates. Following the theoretical component, the course considers social issues that arise in a global context: (1) the duties to the distant poor, (2) global philanthropy and problems of donee accountability, (3) global health and essential medicines and issues in environmental justice, and (4) issues in international law.
Instructor: Kay Mathiesen
Sequence: Online
This course can be used for the following requirements:
- Philosophy Major elective
- Philosophy Minor elective
- Ethics Minor elective
- Information Ethics Minor elective
Description: Covers issues of justice and the public good in relation to the creation, collection, storage, analysis, processing, dissemination, and use of information. Discusses theories of justice and human rights, as well as ethical theories such as utilitarianism and principlism. Topics include intellectual and cultural property, freedom of expression, access to information, fair representation, and information privacy. Discusses how to create and use information technologies that promote individual flourishing and the public good while avoiding bias, exploitation, and manipulation.
Prerequisite(s): PHIL 1145 with a minimum grade of D- or PHIL 1300 with a minimum grade of D- or IS 1300 with a minimum grade of D- or graduate program admission