Prindle reading courses are designed to give students an opportunity to take a focused mini-course on a subject or issue that speaks to issues of ethical concern. The offerings are multi-disciplinary and topics will vary significantly depending on the professor and their disciplinary home.
| Distribution Area | Prerequisites | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 course |
Popol Vuh, often translated as "Book of the Community" or "Book of Counsel," is a sacred narrative of the Quiché people of Guatemala--one of the indigenous Maya peoples who inhabit what is now known as Mexico and Central America. A poetic work that includes the Mayan creation story, Popol Vuh was originally recorded in hieroglyphs. After Spanish colonization, in concert with efforts towards converting indigenous populations to Christianity, Popol Vuh was revised multiple times in multiple languages. This course will focus on Dennis Tedlock's translation, created from a variety of sources, to consider the implications of colonization, religious conversion, and translation on the ethics and worldview of an indigenous population, as well as the ethics of such processes themselves.
Koa Beck defines white feminism as a "type of feminism that takes up the politics of power without questioning them--by replicating patterns of white supremacy, capitalistic greed, corporate ascension, inhumane labor practices, and exploitation, and deeming it empowering for women to practice these tenets as men always have." Yet this mainstream version of feminism in the West has been defined and dictated by the white women who benefit from it, when, in fact it does little to dismantle patriarchy. In this course, students will explore the history of feminism in the U.S., its "branding" and staunch support of capitalism, and how Indigenous, black, brown, transgender, disabled, and undocumented women have been marginalized and invisibilized by white feminism. Additionally, we will not only interrogate the individualistic notions of liberation that are centered in white feminism, but also discuss how we can work collectively to resist the systems that perpetuate oppression.
This course will look at the war fought between Athens and Sparta during their Golden Age, when both states were at the height of their power. The author of the text, Thucydides, was an Athenian general with a brilliant mind and knew statecraft and warfare very well. He saw immediately that the war would be the greatest and most devastating war that the Greek world had seen up to his day. The text describes how people and states behave in times of peace and during war and explores the use and abuse of power. The course will explore ethical questions related to war, foreign policy, diplomacy, and international relations. Ethical themes to be explored are the strengths and weaknesses of democracy, the relationship between democracy and imperialism, treatment of the defeated in warfare, and the function of warfare in society and its impact on political and social history. Additional topics studied include battle formations, armor, generalship, tactics and strategies, weapon lethality, technology and warfare, siege warfare, civilians in warfare, the economics of war, and laws and rules of engagement.
It is platitudinous that we want to live good lives or meaningful lives. But what makes for a good life? What are the features that must be in place so that we can be said to have lived a good life? The Grasshopper is a dialogue on the good life. The main character, Grasshopper, argues that the best life is the life of playing games. What a funny claim! Philosophers have put forth many visions of the good life: the life of knowledge, the life of pleasure, the life of accomplishment, the life of devotion, the life of virtue. In this class, we will evaluate Grasshopper's argument, alternative visions of the good life, and see what we learn along the way.
Scholarly publishing and academia exist in a symbiotic relationship. What happens when open access publishing disrupts the traditional flow of scholarly communication? This new open mindset developed at the same time as an unethical -- and sometimes illegal -- threat to the integrity of scholarly publishing, known as predatory publishing. Predatory publishers have created a distrust in the open access sphere, but that isn't the only barrier. There is also the question of who pays for open access? This course will dive into how open access publishing has brought new perspectives on intellectual property, authorship, and trust in published scholarship.
What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Does our worth reside in how much we produce? In Rest is Resistance, author Tricia Hersey suggests that we don't have to be burned out or disconnected from ourselves or those around us -- instead she invites us to consider how rest can be a form of justice. She approaches the notion of collective rest as a form of performance art, incorporating elements of Black liberation theology, Afrofuturism and poetry into her messaging. She asks us to consider the relationship between rest and privilege as well as legacies of exhaustion rooted in capitalism and white supremacy. Rest is a radical act, and Hersey's work invites us to break free from "grind culture" by using rest as the starting point towards healing and justice.
What ethical principles should govern immigration policies? How do we justify the state's right to exclude? What is owed to asylum seekers and climate refugees? The course will consider competing accounts of our obligations at the borders from travel bans to carrier sanctions.
Caroline Levine's The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis (Princeton UP, 2023) addresses the idea that educated and educating humanists are in some ways impelled (morally? intellectually? socially?) to participate in the public discourse and on-the-ground activist work of environmental justice and climate change policy. Countering scholars in the environmental humanities who embrace only "modest gestures of care"--and who seem to have moved directly to "mourning" our inevitable environmental losses--Levine argues that large-scale, practical environmental activism should be integral to humanists' work. She identifies three major infrastructural forms crucial to sustaining collective life: routines, pathways, and enclosures. Crisscrossing between art works and public works--from urban transportation to television series and from food security programs to rhyming couplets--she considers which forms might support stability and predictability in the face of growing precarity.
Why should society concern itself with actions that do not cause physical harm to others? Should the state impose itself on private matters of the bedroom? Why should a person be forced to live when they are terminally ill? Should the law regulate a woman's reproductive rights or control abortion? Should a person be punished for stealing to feed their starving family? Are you interested in exploring the boundaries of individual freedom within society? This reading course, based on the writings of the jurist, Lord Devlin, offers fascinating discussions on topics ranging from the relationship of religion, morality, and the law to the boundaries of the public and private in the realm of morals. The book offers thought-provoking insights into the contentious issue of employing criminal sanctions to address immoral behavior. The central question at the heart of this debate is often posed as follows: Is it justifiable to criminalize acts that are deemed 'immoral'? This reading class is designed to engage students in a comprehensive exploration of the impact of public morals and ethical principles on an individual's decision-making processes and actions. It offers individuals the chance to delve into their curiosities about a wide range of topics, including the criminalization of LGBTQ rights, laws surrounding euthanasia and mercy killing, adultery, and abortion, legislation related to anti-suicide measures, regulations concerning BDSM practices, the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, and laws governing the possession of recreational drugs. The course invites students to critically analyze how the state/public moral factors influence not only their personal lives and professional endeavors but also their broader engagement with societal and global issues. Through this exploration, students will have the opportunity to cultivate and enhance their critical thinking abilities and decision-making skills, equipping them with the tools to navigate intricate moral quandaries in a variety of contexts.
In this course, we will examine the issue of aiding people in need around the world. The issue raises a variety of moral questions: what obligations do affluent individuals or nations have? If there are any obligations, how can these obligations be discharged? We will evaluate arguments in favor of giving aid esp. effective altruism. Also, we will evaluate objections to aid: unintended negative consequences of such aid, brain drain, incentivizing corruption, encouragement of poor policies, etc.
Why would a photographer choose not to take a picture? This evocative question will guide our reading and discussions during the semester. We will examine how photographers make decisions in the field, usually in the spur of the moment, and how those choices are informed. Privacy, consent, representation, and exploitation are some of the larger issues that relate to these instantaneous moments, which often plague photographers. In an extreme example, photographers (Like Ed Kashi in the book) may have to decide whether or not to save a life or to take a picture. And sometimes, a photographer is attacked, or their subject is violated simply because they are being photographed. The act of photographing can alter a situation. Furthermore, the choice to share a photograph on social media can change a person's life forever. Photographers have to face many questions as they photograph. We will examine the ethical role of photographing in our current times and how the subject, photographer and public can be affected by these choices.