Just for some background about myself, I just transitioned to the University of the Ozarks (AR) as an Assistant Professor of philosophy, from Young Harris College (GA) as an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious studies and department chair. This syllabus comes from my previous institution.
I created this course because I noticed a need for rigorous phenomenology training in formal and informal discussions with colleagues in Communication Studies, Business, Nursing Science, and even Psychology. In these fields, they distinguish between “quantitative” and “qualitative” research, and they often cite phenomenology among the qualitative methods. However, when I ask them what that is, they say something along the lines of “it’s just saying how things appear to you” — often in a dismissive or diminutive way. To counter this tendency, I felt inspired to provide students with a detailed introduction to phenomenology.
I wanted to design an intermediate course that could support a Philosophy minor (given there is no philosophy major at Young Harris College), while also serving as a Core curriculum course option in the General Education requirements. Given that it might be the only philosophy course some students would ever have, I wanted to meet a number of intersecting considerations: depth and breadth in phenomenology and existentialism, inclusion of diverse voices, flexibility for students to self-select research in their own interests, and more. My model for many courses like this is a “great books” approach, where I want them to read and engage with entire books by representative and/or marginalized voices in the area(s). I use reading guides with questions about specific pages in the texts so that if students struggle with comprehension, they can use the guides to help them feel that they get at least the tip of the iceberg.
My two main pedagogical goals are to create a dynamic dialogue space in the classroom and to have students apply phenomenological methods to an area of their interests. I support these goals through a number of activities and assignments. For daily assignments to promote dialogue and comprehension of reading assignments, I use the National School Reform Faculty protocol called the “Text Rendering Experience,” where students bring in a word, phrase, and sentence (with citations and explanations for each) they see as significant for the reading assignment for the day. In small groups (4-5), students share their “three things” with one another. In addition, I provide daily reading guides where students select one from three to five questions, guiding them to specific pages and passages. (I tell them it is to prove to me that they even did the reading!). The “three things” and reading guide answers form the basis of daily dialogues, once we build from small group exchanges to whole class discussion. I scaffold to the goal of students producing a bigger research paper through three intermediary assignments. Nearly every two weeks, they provide an “isolating specifics” entry where they identify, explain, and interpret a single passage. At the one-third and two-third moments of the semester, they outline in class and workshop, and then write and submit an analytical essay where they need to demonstrate grasp of key concepts (they chose their own topics with instructor permission). For the final research project, we read examples of applications of phenomenology and existentialism to race, sexuality, and music for the final third of the semester. They provide a proposal, and then present their research to the class. I have had students do a phenomenology of boxing and tennis, of what it is like to be mixed-race, and more.
A few of my favorite elements of the syllabus and course include: the detailed structured routine of the schedule, the units on critique of existentialism and applications of phenomenology, and the open-book open-note speaking-with-everyone learning celebrations (aka exams). The students initially express a lot of frustration at not being able to grasp the readings in a quick skim, but over time come to recognize their efforts pay off — especially when they turn to readings from other courses with ease. Their favorite parts are the daily discussions, the reliability, and the topics themselves.
This course has helped me see more clearly how learning celebrations, reading guides, inclusion of diverse voices, and student driven culminating research contribute to student success in learning and engagement, and I have made strides to include these in my other courses. One change I consider making for future iterations of the course is that each unit gravitates around one representative voice (except the third unit), and so I consider changing the centered voices. I’ve considered making the course easier by removing some reading requirements, but just cannot bring myself to do so. Of course, it’s unreasonable to expect 18-20 year olds to be able to pick up Husserl or de Beauvoir and just read them. I try to give students a lot of support: reading guides, and self-selected three things of interest. I think instructors of such a course need to accept that students will get just the tip of the iceberg.
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Nathan Eric Dickman
Nathan Eric Dickman (PhD, The University of Iowa) is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of the Ozarks. Eric researches in hermeneutic phenomenology, philosophy of language, and comparative questions in philosophy of religions, and teaches a range of courses—such as Critical Thinking, Jewish Experience, Medieval Philosophical Theology, and Phenomenology. His book, Using Questions to Think, will be published with Bloomsbury next year.
