In 2016 Hamilton College, a small liberal arts college in central NYS where I work passed an unusual (and possibly even unique) requirement: students must take an SSIH designated course in their concentrations (what we call the major). Here is the official language from our catalogue:
The Social, Structural, and Institutional Hierarchies Requirement: Beginning with the Class of 2020 every student must complete a concentration requirement that will focus on an understanding of structural and institutional hierarchies based on one or more of the social categories of race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexuality, age, and abilities/disabilities.)
I will discuss here Philosophy 410, my seminar in American Philosophy, an advanced undergraduate philosophy seminar cross listed with American Studies, capped at 12, and usually attracting junior and seniors, mostly philosophy majors, and some American studies majors too. The seminar met SSIH conditions before the requirement came into being (as did many in the department). That’s not to say that most of us didn’t go to considerable lengths to reframe and be explicit about the goals of the requirement and how the course addresses them.
I got the idea to create the American Philosophy course a long time ago, when my friend and colleague at Wellesley College Ruth Anna Putnam created a very successful American Philosophy course there in the late 1980s; I first taught a version of it in about 2010. The current version of my course bears only a passing resemblance to Ruth Anna’s though, with more untraditional source readings, and a topic focus for the last quarter or so that shifts from iteration to iteration.
I am keenly interested in working with students to unearth and critically examine some of the battling intellectual roots of the American project with an ultimate goal of having students connect them to institutions or policies whose effects we are still struggling to shape or escape today. In some versions of the last part of the course we focused on the “culture wars” over the case for a multicultural curricula in higher education, in others race and racism from Reconstruction through the case for reparations, and still others on the connection between democracy and education.
My weekly short paper assignments (some years with questions provided, some years not) were inspired by the pedagogical example of Carl G. Hempel from whom I took several courses in philosophy of science as an undergraduate in the mid 1970’s. Everyone in the class had to submit a question or comment about the assigned material (on paper of course) the evening before each class. He incorporated those questions into the lectures and discussions, and regularly drew the questioners into the class meetings; the assignments helped us to develop a relationship to the material, to him, and to our classmates. Mr. Hempel was unfailingly kind and respectful to us. I try to remember to try to emulate him. The technique of submitting written responses before every class meeting also works for my seminar, though I am asking more than a question from the students weekly, and I can’t usually spotlight more than a few students in any given meeting. But they are prepared, and the assignments also help them later to think about their bigger writing assignments.
The students and I both really appreciate the mix of traditional philosophy texts (notably the Pragmatists), with early religious tracts, some of the Federalist Papers, Lincoln’s inaugurals, and finally, the opportunity to take the 20,000 foot view of where we are now in light of these fault lines. Questions about race, sex, discrimination, and equity have never been far afield in the course. I look forward this fall to talking about them throughout and in even greater depth, though I have not yet revised the next version for F20!
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Katheryn Doran
Katheryn Doran teaches courses on American philosophy, environmental ethics, and philosophy and film at Hamilton College. She co-edited Critical Thinking: An Introduction to the Basic Skills and has published papers on skepticism, and philosophy and film. She served on the APA Committee on the Teaching of Philosophy 2013-16, and was the guest editor of the APA Newsletter on teaching philosophy in non-traditional settings. Doran has run a philosophy book group in prison from 2007-2020 and looks forward to resuming that work.
https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/our-faculty/directory/faculty-detail/katheryn-doran
